High ping has never ever resulted in a VAC ban. Match abandonment in ranked games can result in game bans, however. These are not VAC bans but bans issued directly by the developer for unacceptable conduct.
Correct me if I'm wrong but,
couldn't
malware that's intercepting, inspecting, and altering TCP/IP packets
or
bad hardware that's 'inconsistently' dropping packets
also 'trigger' an
actual VAC Ban?
I'm asking/mentioning as I recall devices for the Xbox 360 that did similar, and were a PITA for msft to detect and ban.
IIRC, the eventually-found
un-bannable 'trick' was using a physical switch on one of the Ethernet conductors/pairs, to simulate (on-demand) an 'ISP/Network problem' while not-entirely disconnecting the 'hacker/exploiter'.
If done quick-enough, an exploiter could 'freeze' everyone else in the game (they hosted),
frag them, then re-enable proper LAN/WAN function.
I wonder if VAC has a detection mechanism for this kind of
dumb hardware-level TCP/IP exploit?