Activision patches anti-cheat "workaround" used to ban innocent Call of Duty players
Activision has confirmed that it has patched a "workaround" that would trick Call of Duty's Ricochet anti-cheat system into banning legitimate accounts, which was allegedly used against a number of content creators.
The details:
In a post on X, Activision confirmed that it had identified and fixed the problem that had resulted in the inaccurate bans affecting a "small number of legitimate player accounts," and that it had since "restored" those impacted, while it continues to monitor the situation.
Although the publisher did not reveal details of the exploit, it had been claimed that it simply involved including a specific phrase in a friend request message to a player. According to a write-up by Zebleer, the creator of the Phantom Overlay cheating software and the exploit's founder, Vizor, sending the phrase "Trigger Bot" to a player will result in the account being flagged. This is due to the string being added to their system's memory, prompting Ricochet to take action as it matched the signature it was set up to look for.
Recently, a number of high-profile content creators were caught in a ban wave, leading many players to believe they were in fact cheating, causing damage to their reputation. However, it now appears that some of those affected were wrongfully banned, with former pro players Censor and Parasite, as well as Warzone streamer BobbyPoff, being unbanned, prompting the latter to demand an apology from Activision.
Ricochet anti-cheat has been panned by players since its introduction during the lifecycle of COD: Vanguard due to its ineffectiveness in tackling the ongoing cheating problem. Players have also claimed that the system is frequently abused to place "shadowbans" on others by sending constant reports about opponents, preventing them from searching for games or forcing them into lobbies with genuine cheaters.
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