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Call of Duty's new anti-cheat system, Ricochet has reportedly already seen elements leak. Theoretically, this could allow cheatmakers to circumvent the system before it's released – although it may not be as serious a problem as that seems.
Ricochet was formally announced yesterday, and aims to provide more sophisticated anti-cheat solutions using kernal-level monitors – essentially, tools that give Ricochet the ability to scan applications other than the game itself, and prevent code manipulation.
According to Anti-Cheat Police Department and corroborated by sources close to Modern Warzone, a kernal-level driver was leaked to private groups and subsequently to a public cheating forum. With access to the driver, cheatmakers can theoretically reverse-engineer elements of Ricochet and create workarounds.
Unfortunately, the kernel driver for @CallofDuty new Anti-cheat called RICOCHET got leaked today, and P2C devs are already reversing it, this is already very bad. pic.twitter.com/Vb8f3eXx5b
— Anti-Cheat Police Department 🕵️ (@AntiCheatPD) October 14, 2021
However, this isn't necessarily as disastrous as it may seem. Anti-cheat software is designed to evolve over time, and sources claim this version of the driver is around two weeks old, meaning it may already be out of date by the time Ricochet is implemented. With only a driver and not the anti-cheat's source code, this may amount to a 'head start' for cheatmakers, but not a definitive workaround.
Another going theory is that this is a controlled leak of false information, designed to either expose cheatmakers or lead them in the wrong direction. As Modern Warzone points out, Activision has form here, having previously released fake cheat tools for Call of Duty: Warzone.
We've contacted Activision for comment.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Joe Beard assisted with this report.