Call of Duty talks RICOCHET and TPM 2.0 alongside other items in update
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Call of Duty has been ramping up security as of recent. I know I've seen the TPM 2.0 mentions upon my logins. Today, the team at RICOCHET detailed more of what they've accomplished, and hope to accomplish in the upcoming Black Ops 7. Take a look at all the details from the Call of Duty Blog below.
Cheating is one of the most frustrating experiences in online gaming, and we know how quickly it can undermine fair play when it shows up in a match. It’s not a problem that can be solved with one update, one detection, or one new tool. It’s an evolving fight, and it’s one we’re committed to staying ahead of.
In Black Ops 6, we’ve made real progress. Our latest updates have allowed us to shut down cheat developers faster, quickly act on cheaters, and keep Ranked Play leaderboards cleaner.
Here’s what we cover in the Season 05 Reloaded Progress Report:
Season 05 Reloaded:
- Teaming detections show strong results; Mitigations have caught over 55K cheaters off guard
- In-game notifications for Limited Matchmaking account status are live
- TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot activation troubleshooting; MSI and ASRock release updates
- Initial details for the Black Ops 7 Beta Anti-Cheat roadmap
Season 05 Anti-Cheat Results Recap
Our fight against cheating and hacking takes multiple forms, including in-game mitigations that are designed to disrupt cheaters in matches. Some players have noticed these tools in action, like weapons disappearing and cars exploding when certain players enter. They then promptly tell on themselves across social media, asking “Why did this happen?”
These are our mitigations at work, ramped up and powered by new detection systems that have been extremely effective at disrupting bad actors in real-time. We don't hit every cheater with these mitigations; most are banned upon detection. But in August alone, over 55,000 cheaters were disrupted by Call of Duty's mitigations.
We use these mitigations to learn more about player behavior and systems to help identify cheats faster in the future. We begin by nerfing a cheater’s ability to do any damage with weapons and vehicles, collect information that helps strengthen our system, and then permanently ban them from our games.
These in-game mitigations are part of our broader strategy that hits cheating at all levels, including modes that cheaters target the most, such as Ranked Play, which often bears the brunt of cheating.
During Season 05, we announced that we had permanently banned accounts where Boosting made up the majority of their recent in-game activity and were part of repeated patterns of abuse.
We have also been targeting Teaming across Ranked Play in both Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Warzone. Our new process runs continuously, with regular leaderboard purges so players can have confidence in their placements.
The number of Teamers in the Top 250 has consistently remained under 5% at any given time since we began our weekly purges, based on these new detections.
In-Game TPM 2.0 Prompts
Some players may still see a message prompting them to enable TPM 2.0 in Black Ops 6 or Warzone after the Season 05 Reloaded update. This prompt was first introduced in Season 05, and in certain cases it continues to appear on AMD systems running older firmware. In these cases, a PC will still fail attestation (aka verification), even if built-in tools show that TPM 2.0 is enabled.
Versions of AMD’s TPM software in the 3.x.0.x range can return an error during the attestation process, and the fix is to update the system BIOS or firmware.
Some motherboard manufacturers have not yet released a BIOS/Firmware update to correct TPM errors. In those cases, you may need to reach out to your manufacturer’s support for help. MSI, for example, has said it is releasing patched BIOS updates for AM4 motherboards to address these TPM-related errors. ASRock has also begun rolling out an update to correct this issue.
RICOCHET Anti-Cheat uses Remote Attestation, a process that verifies critical PC security settings directly with Microsoft, as part of its implementation of TPM 2.0.
Other games may lean on Client or Local Attestation, where the system checks itself and reports back. The limitation with that method is clear: cheats can sometimes disguise or manipulate what’s being reported, effectively tricking the local system into giving a false “all clear.” By contrast, Remote Attestation places the verification step with an external, trusted authority, making it exponentially harder for tampered machines to pass as legitimate.
By validating integrity outside of the game client, we ensure the environment hasn’t been tampered with before gameplay even begins. This level of verification gives Call of Duty a stronger, hardware-rooted foundation for security.
Our approach to Remote Attestation is more advanced than typical implementations. It’s tightly integrated with Windows security features like Secure Boot and TPM 2.0, and it leverages Microsoft’s infrastructure to provide independent confirmation of system integrity. This not only closes common loopholes but also strengthens the long-term resilience of RICOCHET Anti-Cheat against evolving threats. It’s another example of how Call of Duty invests in layered protections designed to adapt, harden, and keep fair play at the forefront.
Call of Duty's use of Remote Attestation, which provides a stronger layer of protection, may require updates to firmware to meet this security standard. In contrast, implementations of Client or Local attestation may allow older firmware versions, but its validation process does not achieve our security goals.
Call of Duty's use of Remote Attestation, which provides a stronger layer of protection, may require updates to firmware to meet this security standard. In contrast, implementations of Client or Local attestation may allow older firmware versions, but its validation process does not achieve our security goals.
Coming in Season 06, we are expanding the in-game message to provide more information about TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot-related errors to better inform players of their PC’s status.
In-game Limited Matchmaking Notifications
In the Season 03 Progress Report, we noted that Limited Matchmaking (LMM) is a critical part of our anti-cheat system. It is designed as an immediate response to suspicious activity. When triggered, it moves accounts into a separate matchmaking pool.
LMM can impact an entire party of players if one member of the team is flagged. In-game, however, it’s difficult to determine what your account status is. That leads some players to assume that they are in Limited Matchmaking when they are simply brought into the pool based on their party.
In Season 05 Reloaded, players will receive an in-game notification when their account is placed in the Limited Matchmaking pool. We will also notify users of an entire party when their experience may be impacted based on the party they have joined.
More than 75% of the LMM pool is made up of users who have been brought into the system through parties, so this notification is important to clarify account status.
As a reminder, being placed in Limited Matchmaking doesn’t signal that an account is a confirmed cheater. It means an alarm was raised that requires examination.
Black Ops 7 Roadmap
When Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launches on November 14, PC players will be required to enable both Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 as detailed in our recent Progress Report. These hardware-based features will give us a stronger, more trusted foundation for detecting and blocking certain cheats before they can take root.
Learn how to enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot.
During the Black Ops 7 Beta, #TeamRICOCHET will have some of its systems online as we test how they perform under live conditions. These tools are designed to identify and remove cheaters faster, and we’ll be closely monitoring how they respond in real matches. The full force of our protections will be reserved for launch, when all systems come online together.
We also want to be clear: there’s no one-and-done solution to solving the challenge of cheating. Every major game faces this issue, and cheaters are constantly looking for new ways to exploit systems.
What matters, and where we’ve seen real improvement, is how quickly we adapt. In Black Ops 6, detections are faster, mitigations are stronger, and enforcement is cutting deeper into the networks that try to harm fair play. With Black Ops 7, hardware protections like Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 will add another layer of defense.
Call of Duty Bug Bounty
As part of a broader Activision-wide security initiative, Call of Duty runs a Bug Bounty program. This program gives players and security researchers a way to report potential vulnerabilities across the entire franchise – not only the titles protected by RICOCHET Anti-Cheat – and helps us protect the overall integrity of our games.
While the program extends beyond #TeamRICOCHET’s direct scope, our team helps oversee and manage the Security Disclosure Portal across all Call of Duty titles.
Learn more about submitting a report to the Security Disclosure Portal here.
Follow @CODUpdates on X for real-time updates, information from upcoming Progress Reports, and more.
Stay tuned to GamingTrend for more Call of Duty news and info!
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