The publisher of Call of Duty: Warzone, Activision, has created a report about computer viruses disguised as cheats for the battle royale. According to the report, there is a hacker who explains to beginners how to conduct their first successful malware attack with fake cheats.
What is going on? Activision has published an English report titled “Cheating Cheaters – Malware Delivered as Call of Duty Cheats” (via activision.com). It discusses the investigation of a hacking method that disguises malware as cheat software for Call of Duty: Warzone to deliver computer viruses to the victims’ PCs.
The provider of the method explains how to best spread their malware and why Warzone cheats are such a “good bait for your first malware project”.
What is a Trojan? This refers to malware programs that disguise themselves as “useful” software. They aim to convince you to initiate a download or manually grant a program permissions, thus allowing access to important features of your computer. Trojans can be just the “disguise” for a malicious program, or the virus/worm itself is a Trojan.
CoD Cheats – Optimal for Hacker Beginners
What is behind this? The report documents the observations of a malware provider who presents a “beginner-friendly” and “effective” method for spreading a “Remote Access Trojan” (RAT). The Trojan is a fake cheat program for Warzone. The malicious program itself is a “dropper” and thus a type of infection carrier that can release or download a computer virus.
Once the Trojan has received certain rights from the user on the computer, the malware infects the machine through the dropper. Depending on the goals of the programmers of the malicious software, computer viruses or worms can have various impacts on your computer. For example:
- Collect information about user behavior
- Utilize the victim’s computing power for bot networks
- Replicate the malicious software onto other PCs
- Data takeover or blocking
The hacker provider has posted the instructions for their Warzone grandchild trick on various hacking forums and states that this method particularly targets high-performance computers. One of the posts received over 10,000 views.
Warzone Cheaters Activate the Malware Voluntarily
Why is it so easy with Warzone cheats? The provider of the Warzone dropper claims it is a very good method, especially for hacking beginners, because users voluntarily relinquish their rights. Instead of spending hours trying to infiltrate foreign systems, beginners just need to program their malware, insert it into the dropper, and hope that a user downloads the fake cheats.
Real cheat programs also require extensive rights on the computer. If hackers can make the program appear authentic until the rights request, “cheaters” activate the malware on their computer themselves. Such programs should be offered for free as “bait”.
The report further states that the malicious programs have been found on cheat websites. The design of some posts promoting the fake cheats was made “without much effort” and “not particularly clever”, yet there were reactions to the post and inquiries from users asking if anyone had experience with the program. The last sighting of such a post dates back to March 2021.
And it gets even easier. The report creators found several YouTube videos that follow a similar method. The videos explain how to use cheats for Warzone for free. However, the link in the video description executes a download that requests admin rights from the user and pulls malware onto the computer.
Cheaters in Warzone Remain a Problem
Some victims of cheaters in Warzone will definitely appreciate this news. Cheaters are a significant problem in the free-to-play shooter, and many players have already encountered opponents using aim-bots and/or wall-hacks.
The developers regularly assert that they continue to work on the problem. Unfortunately, Warzone has so far been a playground for cheaters and exploiters. Perhaps not in every match, but unfortunately, you still encounter cheaters from time to time.
The community continues to hope for more effective measures from the developers against cheaters in Warzone. Perhaps it is also deterring to know that you can quickly get malicious software on your PC through such programs. You can never know who is behind the programs and with what intentions.
