Hackers Hide Malware Inside Fake Call of Duty: Warzone Cheats

Attention, n00bs. Hackers apparently deploy bogus gaming “cheats” to Call of Duty: Warzone. They will unfortunately not help you convince your opponents. Instead, they will simply inject malware into your computer.

A recently disclosed report from the game publisher Activision shows that discussions of such patterns have recently been observed on several dark web forums. Criminals have discussed tricking unsuspecting gamers into downloading a dropper-a malicious program which can be customized to install other, more destructive forms of malware (such as, for example, a rat) on a computer or device – convincing them it was actually a free cheat program.

According to the report, this free “cheat” offers things like infinite ammo “for all weapons”, “extra speed” and a “1hit1kill” feature. Really good stuff! If only it was real, and not an excuse to steal your financial information.

Even more troubling, Activision says the “cheat” tool has been repeatedly advertised on a popular cheat forum under the headline “New COD hack. ”(Players looking to break the rules usually go to these forums to find new ways to do it.) Although the report does not mention which forum they were posted to (this would certainly have been helpful ), it states that these offers have popped up a number of times. They have also been seen advertised in YouTube videos, where instructions have been provided on how players can perform the “tips” on their devices, and the report states that “comments [on the videos] seem to indicate that people have downloaded and attempted to use the tool. “

Part of the reason this attack might work so well is that gaming cheats typically require a user to disable key security features that would otherwise keep malware out of their system. The hacker essentially forces the victim to do their own work for them.

“It’s common when setting up a cheat program to run it with the highest system privileges,” the report notes. “Cheat guides typically ask users to disable or uninstall anti-virus software and host firewalls, disable kernel code signing, etc.”

With all of this in mind, it might be desirable for players to stay on the path of goodness and virtue – and only play by the rules for now.