Hackers Target Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Online Players

According to a TechCrunch report, hackers are infecting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players with a self-spreading worm that automatically spreads within the game’s online lobbies.

The malicious campaign came to light when a user on a Steam forum issued a warning to fellow Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players on June 26.

The user reported that hackers were launching attacks through hacked lobbies and advised running an antivirus to safeguard against potential infections. The malware in question was also identified on the widely-used malware repository, VirusTotal.

Subsequently, another player who claimed to have analyzed the malware confirmed in the same forum thread that the malware possesses characteristics of a worm.

This conclusion was drawn from the presence of specific text strings within the malware’s code. An industry insider, choosing to remain anonymous, corroborated this assessment, adding weight to the concern.

When contacted, an official spokesperson for Activision, Neil Wood, referred to a tweet from the company’s official Call of Duty updates Twitter account.

The tweet vaguely acknowledged the presence of the malware and stated that they had taken the multiplayer functionality of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Steam offline to investigate the issue.

As of now, the motives behind the hackers’ actions remain unclear. The malware’s worm-like behavior indicates that it spreads automatically from one infected player to another within the game’s online lobbies.

This suggests that the hackers may have identified and are exploiting one or more vulnerabilities in the game to execute their malicious code on other players’ computers.

Valve, the company operating the Steam platform, has also not issued any official comment regarding the matter.