An EAC ban in Rust is a ban from Easy Anti-Cheat, the anti-cheat Rust uses instead of VAC. When EAC catches a cheat, Steam adds a game ban to the profile. It cannot be lifted: according to Facepunch’s help article, EAC bans are permanent, they are not reversed on request, and a hijacked account is no excuse either.
What EAC is
Easy Anti-Cheat is a third-party anti-cheat that Facepunch runs in Rust. VAC, Valve’s own anti-cheat, plays no part in Rust. That is where the confusion comes from: people expect a caught cheater to have a VAC ban, and instead the profile says "game ban". It is the same event; Steam simply labels developer-issued bans that way. The full comparison is in VAC ban vs game ban.
Why the ban arrives late
EAC bans land with a delay, not the moment the cheat fires. A cheater can keep playing, raiding and telling everyone their cheat is "undetected" for a while. Then the ban arrives all at once.
For a regular player the takeaway is simple: a cheater running around unbanned does not mean the anti-cheat cannot see them. A report to the server’s admins may get results sooner, though. How to write one is covered in how to report a cheater.
Can an EAC ban be lifted?
In short, no. Facepunch’s help article on EAC bans sets out the rules:
- the ban is permanent;
- it is not lifted on request;
- it stays even if the account was hijacked at the time;
- new accounts created to evade the ban get banned too.
Two practical conclusions follow. First, anyone on Discord offering to remove an EAC ban for money is scamming you: under Facepunch’s rules there is nothing to remove. Second, look after your own account. Turn on Steam Guard and do not lend your account to a friend "for a couple of wipes". If someone cheats on your account, the ban is yours.
Manual Facepunch bans
Besides the anti-cheat, Facepunch also bans by hand for playing alongside cheaters. Those bans are permanent too, but only lock the official servers. Teaming with someone you suspect is a bad idea for more than just fair-play reasons.
EAC ban vs project ban
People mix them up, but they are different things.
| EAC ban | Project ban | |
|---|---|---|
| Issued by | Easy Anti-Cheat | A specific server’s admins |
| On Steam | Shows as a game ban | Not shown; Steam does not know about it |
| Where it applies | Rust servers running EAC | Only that project’s servers |
| Reason given | No | Yes: reason and date |
| Can it be lifted | No | Up to the project; some bans do get lifted |
A project ban is a human decision: admins watched a demo or called the player in for a check. The large Russian projects publish their bans, and each one shows the project, reason and date. An EAC ban has none of that, just the mark on Steam.
How to check whether a player has an EAC ban
Open their Steam profile: a game ban is visible to anyone, even on a private profile. But Steam does not say which game it came from. On a Rust player that is a strong reason to look closer, not hard proof they were caught in Rust.
Look at how old the ban is, too. Steam shows how many days have passed since the last one. A fresh game ban on someone who was shooting suspiciously well in front of you yesterday says more than a years-old ban on a player with thousands of server hours since.
A faster way is RustRecon: paste a profile link or SteamID. For free you see Steam bans (VAC and game) and how many projects banned the player. Pro shows which projects, why and when. All ban types are covered on checking a player’s bans.
RustRecon shows a game ban as a fact but keeps it out of the risk score, because there is no reliable way to tie it to Rust. The report does not hand down verdicts at all: it gathers open data and you decide.
If you are the one who got banned
Asking support to unban you is pointless: under Facepunch’s rules the ban stays. Making a new account to get around it is pointless too, because that account gets banned. If your account was stolen and someone cheated on it, the ban still stays, but you should recover and secure the Steam account anyway: it may hold other games and your inventory.