What does a Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) notification look like?

I'd like to know what messages appear when somebody is cheating and VAC detects it. Do they appear in-game (for games which support VAC natively) or via Steam's game overlay (opened by pressing shift-tab)? Does the game immediately close to show the message? What happens on the screen of the banned player and the players on the same server throughout the whole process?

I couldn't find unmodified screenshots or detailed enough info on google. This post briefly lists the things that trigger a ban, but not how it notifies the user of detected cheating visually.

Solution 1:

Caveat: I have never been VAC banned so all information provided below is from different sources across the internet.

When a player on the server is VAC banned

The notification most likely varies slightly from game to game. In Source games, a message will appear in the chat stating something like

Player [PlayerName] has left the game: [VAC Banned from secure server]

You can see this in this screenshot:

^Source

(It's fairly blurry sorry, I'm still looking for a better quality picture)

When you are banned

Again, the notification varies slightly from game to game, but if you are VAC-banned mid game, you will get a notification similar to this:

According to the TF2 Wiki, you will recieve the following notification when you try to connect to a VAC-enabled server.

^{Message displayed to a VAC-banned client.}

The TF2 wiki explains in further detail the different measures that take place in the event of a VAC Ban. In addition to receiving the above message:

those who are VAC Banned have all non-purchased items deleted from their backpack.

Needless to say, it would not be a very pleasant situation to be in.

Sources:

• TF2 Wiki: Valve Anti-Cheat
• Counterstrike Wiki: Valve Anti-Cheat