Earlier this month, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s impending merger resulted in the publisher fixing all the multiplayer servers of older Call of Duty games such as Call of Duty: Black Ops and the original Modern Warfare 2. The aftermath? Hundreds of thousands of gamers dusted off their old Xbox 360s or started installing these legacy games on their new Xbox Series consoles, bringing a sense of nostalgia. The Verge reported that almost 100,000 players joined the online matchmaking lobbies of the old Call of Duty games.
However, it seems hackers have now turned their attention to these servers.
Call of Duty servers infected
According to a TechCrunch report, hackers have infected servers of an old yet beloved Activision game, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The malware is spreading automatically in online lobbies, the examination of the malware has revealed.
Gamers have taken to Steam forums to report these issues. A user @Bee posted on July 26, alerting other players, “Make sure you have a virus scanner before using this game, they attack using hacked lobbies.”
Interestingly, the malware was also spotted on VirusTotal, which is the online malware repository. A player even analyzed the malware embedded on the servers and posted on the Steam forum that it appears 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 workers have acknowledged these issues on X (formerly known as Twitter). In a post, the official Call of Duty Updates account wrote, “Multiplayer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) on Steam was brought offline while we investigate reports of an issue.”
According to the report, the malware spreads automatically from one player to another in online lobbies, although the cause behind this malware remains unknown. It is suspected that hackers must have exploited bugs in the game which gave them access to run malicious codes on computers.
