Security News > 2021 > April > Malware Hidden in Call of Duty Cheating Software

Most troublingly, Activision says that the "Cheat" tool has been advertised multiple times on a popular cheating forum under the title "New COD hack." While the report doesn't mention which forum they were posted on, it does say that these offerings have popped up a number of times.

They have also been seen advertised in YouTube videos, where instructions were provided on how gamers can run the "Cheats" on their devices, and the report says that "Comments seemingly indicate people had downloaded and attempted to use the tool."

Part of the reason this attack could work so well is that game cheats typically require a user to disable key security features that would otherwise keep a malicious program out of their system.

The hacker is basically getting the victim to do their own work for them.

"It is common practice when configuring a cheat program to run it the with the highest system privileges," the report notes.

"Guides for cheats will typically ask users to disable or uninstall antivirus software and host firewalls, disable kernel code signing, etc."

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/04/malware-hidden-in-call-of-duty-cheating-software.html