Activision shuts down claims that Call of Duty's upgraded anti-cheat can be bypassed

Cheating in videogames has been a huge issue for a long time now, and Call of Duty is no exception. There's nothing worse than booting into a game of Warzone or Black Ops 7 and encountering a hacker who can see through walls or aimbot onto you and never miss a bullet. Despite Activision's Ricochet anti-cheat system, the problem still persists, and as the company looks to implement more security into the tool during BO7 Season 4, some believe that hackers can already bypass it.

When Black Ops 7 Season 2 launched and introduced Ranked Play to the FPS game, the update included new expanded security protections using Microsoft Azure Attestation. The company says this is used to "verify important PC security settings directly," and performs those checks through Microsoft servers. This is preferred to on-system checks, which can be manipulated.

With MAA, PCs that don't meet the security criteria are filtered into separate lobbies away from the majority of users. This means those who have met the security criteria are kept separate from those who have not. Specifically, users will need to have TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot enabled.

Up until just recently, some metrics of Microsoft Azure Attestation were completely vulnerable to spoofing in some circumstances, and would accept attacker controlled measurements. SecureBoot in this case, spoofed as ON from a malicious bootkit. see CVE-2026-45642 pic.twitter.com/dvTjuw9jVO

- Nick Peterson 🇺🇲 ✝️ (@nickeverdox) June 9, 2026

Activision says that these updates are "designed to make it harder for bad actors to play Call of Duty while protecting fair play for everyone else." However, rumors started to spread on X that the MAA system was bypassable, with a video on X allegedly showing it was possible to get around those checks. This prompted some CoD fans to complain that the upcoming update to Ricochet was already hijacked, and hackers would be flooding the game.

Thankfully, Call of Duty's Community Team has already responded, hitting back at those claims and reassuring players, writing: "Look again, and you'll see Microsoft already fixed this. Much like our own private bug bounty, we're grateful for those who report security vulnerabilities to our partners responsibly."

"Microsoft Azure Attestation remains a key component in Ricochet Anti-Cheat, stopping and identifying cheaters before they can enter a match. Looking forward to our continued work with our partners to keep games fun and safe."

Clearly, Activision is continuing to take a strong stance on cheating, and it has paid dividends. While cheaters are still an issue, I can say from personal experience that the number I've encountered has been significantly lower in this year's title compared to previous ones. In fact, the system was even working well during the BO7 beta, when less than 1% of cheaters made it into a match.

There's currently no word on an exact release date for this major Ricochet update past confirmation that it'll come during Black Ops 7 Season 4, which is live now. Activision is also working on combatting the use of scripted input devices like Cronus Zens and the XIM Matrix by handing out temporary bans to those who use them.