Just days after its unveiling, Call of Duty’s anti-cheat system has reportedly leaked
Cheaters are said to be working to crack Ricochet
The kernel-level driver for Call of Duty’s new anti-cheat system, Ricochet, has reportedly been leaked, just days after it was unveiled.
Modern Warzone claims to have verified that the leaked kernel-level files which are currently circulating online are real.
According to images claiming to show the files, they’re just a few weeks old. In theory, this could give cheat creators a head start on attempting to circumvent the anti-cheat tech before its release next month.
However, with the source of the leak currently unclear, some have speculated that publisher Activision purposefully released a decoy file as a red herring for cheaters, although there’s no evidence that this is the case.
VGC has contacted Activision for comment on this report.
Plans for the new anti-cheat system were confirmed in August as part of Call of Duty: Vanguard’s announcement.
Ricochet, which will launch alongside Vanguard on November 5 and shortly after for Warzone as part of the game’s Pacific map update, was officially unveiled on Wednesday.
“The Ricochet Anti-Cheat initiative is a multi-faceted approach to combat cheating, featuring new server-side tools which monitor analytics to identify cheating, enhanced investigation processes to stamp out cheaters, updates to strengthen account security, and more,” Activision said.
“In addition to server enhancements coming with Ricochet Anti-Cheat is the launch of a new PC kernel-level driver, developed internally for the Call of Duty franchise, and launching first for Call of Duty: Warzone.
“This driver will assist in the identification of cheaters, reinforcing and strengthening the overall server security. The kernel-level driver launches alongside the Pacific update for Warzone later this year.”
Activision claims to have issued over 500,000 Warzone permabans since the free-to-play shooter launched in March 2020.
The game’s creative director told VGC in April that he shared fan frustration over cheating in the smash hit, which has attracted over 100 million players.