Recently, there was news about Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s upcoming merger, which led to the publisher addressing the multiplayer servers of older Call of Duty titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops and the original Modern Warfare 2. As a result, numerous gamers, driven by nostalgia, retrieved their old Xbox 360s or installed these classic games on their new Xbox Series consoles. The Verge reported a significant surge in online matchmaking lobbies for these vintage Call of Duty games, with nearly 100,000 players rejoining the fun.
Hackers have managed to infect the servers of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, as per a report by TechCrunch. The malware is rapidly spreading within the online lobbies of the game, as detailed in the analysis of the malicious software.
Users on the Steam forums have been reporting these problems. On July 26, a user with the handle @Bee warned other players, saying, “Make sure you have a virus scanner before using this game, they attack using hacked lobbies.”
Notably, the malware was discovered on VirusTotal, the online malware repository. A vigilant player analyzed the embedded malware on the servers and shared on the Steam forum that it seems to be a worm. He posted, “I can see strings: Worm deactivated by the control server. Worm failed to retrieve data from the control server. Worm killed by control server. Worm up to date.”
Activision employees have recognized the problems on X (previously referred to as Twitter). The official Call of Duty Updates account posted a message stating, “Multiplayer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) on Steam has been taken offline as we look into reports of an problem.” The malware appears to spread automatically from one player to another within online lobbies, but the exact cause of this malware is still unclear. There are suspicions that hackers may have taken advantage of game bugs, enabling them to execute malicious code on computers.
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Updated: 28 Jul 2023, 05:00 PM IST
