NeckBREAK react to kriSSh ban

Earlier in the week, Krishna "⁠kriSSh⁠" Salecha, a former member of ATE Gaming and Virtual Impact, two of the most famous names in the history of Indian Counter-Strike, made headlines when he was caught in the latest wave of VAC bans.

He reacted to the news on Facebook by revealing that an unknown person had logged into his account shortly before the ban, and vowed to contact Valve to clear his name, just like LDLC White member Matthieu "⁠matHEND⁠" Roquigny did in April.

Team NeckBREAK have managed to obtain CCTV footage from an internet cafe that kriSSh visited on May 17, prior to his team's match (which was played at a different location). At one point, the player leaves the computer unattended as he goes outside to make a phone call. Some minutes later (at 2:21 PM in the video), an unknown man comes in and uses the computer for a few moments. You can find this video below:

"When we showed this video to a couple of people we know, they claimed that the actions he did on the keyboard were similar to that of a keylogger," team manager Siddhant "Sid" Joshi told HLTV.org.

"Notice that when he enters in a combination of keys, a UI comes up. Also, Krissh does not come back before he leaves. We will upload the entire footage once we get our hands on it.

"This was a breakthrough for us. Now, the scenario of someone having used his Steam account made more sense because if the keylogger could get the Steam details it could also log his email info considering he had signed into his email account from that cafe to enter the code provided by Steamguard as it was his first time visiting the cafe."

After checking kriSSh's Steam login history, it was discovered that the account had twice been used without his knowledge. The first time was on May 17 at approximately 10 PM, when the account was used to play CS:GO for almost an hour. At this time, the players were returning home after playing an online match against Elusive from a bootcamp place. The second time was on May 19, when the account was logged in for five minutes.

The team then went back to the internet cafe and found out that, at 10 PM on May 17, the unknown male person from the first video was using the exact same computer kriSSh had been on earlier that day.

"We are sorry that the video is not clear, it was recorded during the night on a mobile phone because the owner of the cafe was reluctant to give us the original footage," Joshi added.

"This is the same guy on the same pc on the same day logged in at almost the similar time when Krissh had his account online.

"I do realize that the video is not clear but we have confirmation from the owner of the cafe that this is the same guy. We are trying our best to get the original footage."

While the evidence provided by NeckBREAK is circumstancial, it should be enough to earn him the benefit of the doubt and see his ban be revoked. But the team are worried that, because they are not a heavyweight in the international Counter-Strike scene, their voice will not be heard. So far, all attempts to contact Valve have proved fruitless.  

"Everyone in the team, including the management, is distraught at this moment by this incident," Joshi noted.

"Krissh has already been banned from all the events in the country until his ban gets lifted. He is almost on the verge of a mental breakdown because he feels his career in this field is more or less over and also because he feels like he has disgraced the name of the country.

"This is a guy that held his country's flag up there minutes after finding out about his mother's death, during last year's ESWC qualifiers He did not have enough money to buy a plane ticket home, so he went back by bus (it was a 15-hour ride).

"I hope my statement makes sense to everyone reading this and I hope an official sees this and investigates more into this VAC ban."