Hacker says they banned ‘thousands’ of Call of Duty gamers by abusing anti-cheat flaw
The hacker, who goes by Vizor, tells TechCrunch that they exploited a bug in the popular game's anti-cheat software for months.
In October, video game giant Activision said it had fixed a bug in its anti-cheat system that affected “a small number of legitimate player accounts,” who were getting banned because of the bug.
In reality, according to the hacker who found the bug and was exploiting it, they were able to ban “thousands upon thousands” of Call of Duty players, who they essentially framed as cheaters. The hacker, who goes by Vizor, spoke to TechCrunch about the exploit, and told their side of the story.
“I could have done this for years and as long as I target random players and no one famous it would have gone without notice,” said Vizor, who added that it was “funny to abuse the exploit.”
TechCrunch was introduced to Vizor by a cheat developer called Zebleer, who is familiar with the Call of Duty hacking scene. Zebleer said he had been in touch with Vizor for months, and as such had knowledge of the exploit, which he said he saw Vizor using.
For years, hackers have targeted online video games to try to find flaws capable of installing and using cheats that give players an unfair advantage. Some cheat developers, such as Zebleer, sell their programs as a service, sometimes making millions of dollars. In response, video game companies have been hiring cybersecurity specialists to develop and fine-tune their anti-cheat systems to catch and ban game cheaters. In 2021, Activision released its Ricochet anti-cheat system, which runs at the kernel level in an attempt to make it even harder for cheat developers to get around it.
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