"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" (from 2009, not recent. Not your average hacked lobby, just something that resets settings or does something a bit aggravating, but apparently infected players with a self-spreading worm virus.

According to a post on the official Call of Duty Updates Twitter account last Wednesday, "While we investigate reports of the issue, multiplayer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) on Steam has been taken offline." And that's that. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the tweet does not specifically mention which "issue" it is related to, but given that it comes a month after players began reporting encounters with a worm called Wacatac.B!ml in the MW2 lobby, it It seems likely.

Or perhaps Activision is currently out of favor because of its recent sudden decision to fix matchmaking on the Xbox 360's MW2 (2009) servers.

I have contacted Activision to ask for an explanation as to the reason for the temporary server shutdown of MW2 and will update this article if I hear back.

One player on the Steam forums stated that he analyzed the malware and found a string indicating that it was "coded specifically for MW2." I'm no expert, but the strings posted by that user certainly look like a worm to me. One string reads, "User was randomly selected to be a spreader in modded lobbies," implying that anyone who is exposed to the virus is at risk of being made a vector for the virus The "modded lobbies" (users were randomly selected to be spreaders in the modification lobby).

An anonymous source TechCrunch spoke with "confirmed that the malware contains these strings, indicating that it is a worm."

For now, the hundreds of people still playing 2009's "MW2" in 2023 will have to wait for a new update from Activision. The tweet announcing the server closure did not predict how long the servers would be down, and the account itself has not posted anything since the announcement two days ago. One would hope to avoid a situation like Dark Souls, which literally shut down its service for months.