Fortnite is introducing new PC anti-cheat measures, copying COD and Battlefield

Time to get your Secure Boot enabled

Starting Thursday, Feb. 19, Fortnite will have new anti-cheat measures on Windows PC. Following suit behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6 last year, not to mention games Valorant, Highguard, and League of Legends, Fortnite players will need to enable three security features: Secure Boot, TPM, and IOMMU.

Secure Boot is a hardware-level security feature in a PC's BIOS that prevents malicious software from infiltrating the system. It's another layer of security against anything that may harm your PC, and in the case of Fortnite and other competitive multiplayer games, it stops kernel-level cheats from being used.

TPM — specifically TPM 2.0 — stands for "Trusted Platform Module," and is similar to Secure Boot in that it's another hardware-level security feature. IOMMU stands for "I/O Memory Management Unit," and while still used for security purposes, is more focused on

Both TPM and Secure Boot are usually enabled by default on new Windows 11 PCs, but if you have an older machine, you'll need to update to the latest operating system. Additionally, if either setting is disabled, you'll need to head into your BIOS settings and enable them.

Using a tutorial is recommended for this, as changing BIOS settings without clear guidance can be risky. I attempted to enable both Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 to review Battlefield 6 last year, and due to my unusual PC configuration, I lost all display output. I thought my PC was bricked until I came across an old Reddit thread where someone luckily had the same issue, and managed to fix it. This was after weeks of trying every other obscure solution possible, deep in online forums.

So this will undoubtedly cause some issues for Fortnite players, and it would come as no surprise if we see stories of broken PCs and unhappy players. It's a necessary change to help maintain a fair and competitive environment in-game, and as more games introduce this requirement, the issues it causes will become rarer.

In a press release, Epic Games claim approximately 95% of Fortnite players on PC have a Windows-11 compatible machine, and thus either already meet the requirements or can enable them without new hardware. It's also worth noting that competitive tournaments in Fortnite have required both Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 to be enabled for since February 2025, so this will only require changes for those who haven't played in tournaments. Epic-published articles for each setting can be found at the following links: Secure Boot, TPM, and IOMMU.