The anti-cheat Ricochet, which operates in the Call of Duty series of games, has helped ban hundreds of thousands of cheaters for several years since its introduction, but in this case the system was turned against honest users.
Image source: Activision
The team responsible for Ricochet reported yesterday that they had fixed a vulnerability in the detection system, due to which a “small number” of innocent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty: Warzone players were blocked.
The company restored the affected accounts, but did not go into details. Activision is believed to have closed a loophole that allowed attackers to target Ricochet against literally any account.
The Trigger Bot cheat tracks the coordinates of enemies and automatically activates shooting when you point the crosshair at them
People have been using the remote banning loophole against strangers and famous streamers for months, according to cheat seller zebleer. To initiate a ban, you only had to write two words in the game chat or friend request: Trigger Bot.
Ricochet marks the presence of cheats in the system with special signatures in RAM. The vulnerability made it possible to provoke a ban by introducing these signatures into the victim’s RAM by writing them in the chat. One such phrase was Trigger Bot.
Despite Activision’s assurances that there were a “small number” of honest accounts affected, zebleer said the scale of victims of the loophole numbered in the thousands of casual Call of Duty players.
Apparently, BobbyPoff was one of the victims of the loophole: on October 3, without explanation, the streamer received a permanent ban, and on the 17th he was unblocked. “A public apology now would be very helpful,” he emphasized.
BobbyPoff’s situation became the basis for a parody musical number