Malware masquerading as cheats for "Call Of Duty: Warzone" is widespread, a new security report from Activision (via Charlie Intel) reveals.

Warzone has long been plagued by cheats and exploits, and Activision recently banned 30,000 cheaters in March as well. However, the race to find the next big cheat has caught the attention of more traditional hackers, who are ready to exploit Warzone players seeking to gain a better advantage.

The malware in question, CoD Dropper v0.1, was advertised by potential hackers as a "beginner-friendly" dropper. Cheaters downloaded the software in hopes of speed hacks, AIM bots, and unlimited ammunition, but the hacks ended up giving malicious actors the means to siphon data from target PCs.

According to Activision's report, the kind of activity that constitutes a "real" cheat is what allows malicious hackers to thrive in such a world. Disabling anti-virus software and granting administrative privileges are common procedures for installing real cheat engines, and while the cheat community keeps an eye out for potential malware, for the makers of CoD Dropper, it is not worth the effort It took just a little persistence to find enough targets.

"Although the technique is fairly simplistic, it is ultimately a social engineering method that leverages the willingness of the target (the player attempting to cheat) to voluntarily lower their security protections and ignore warnings about running potentially malicious software. . is a social engineering technique," Activision concluded in its report.

Despite the risks, Warzone's cheating is not going away anytime soon; Morgan, Warzone's resident expert, has been working on the mean streets of Verdansk, or wherever Warzone is headed next, to create hacking and exploit He has put together a cheat sheet on how to spot them.