#TeamRICOCHET uses a variety of systems that are consistently tuned and updated to identify and capture cheaters. These updates happen for a variety of reasons: we have new methods to detect cheaters, cheat developers update their processes to circumvent identification, we’re launching new tricks. There are many reasons.
This is the cat-and-mouse nature of anti-cheat development. We make a move, they counter; we fix a problem, they create new issues.
One thing we wanted to clarify is that the security team’s efforts run alongside the game itself and therefore, in the instance of something like mitigations, these processes cannot trigger without reason.
Think of the security layer from #TeamRICOCHET as a connected but separate pipeline from the active game. The game on your machine and our servers exchange information to operate a multiplayer match. As part of that process, info from that machine/server exchange splits off and feeds into the security pipeline in real-time for detection and investigation. The security team only steps in if we detect an abnormality.
Mitigation triggers do not consider you having the best game of your life as an abnormality. Similarly, if a wave of people submits malicious in-game reports about you, those reports can’t activate mitigations without additional corroboration. These processes do not function together in that way – and there’s a long list of ways we detect cheaters in real-time.
In short, if two people are in a gunfight and neither is cheating, there’s no way for our in-game mitigations to get in the way of the result.
Third-Party Hardware Device Detection Update
In our previous Progress Report, we detailed a new detection for the malicious use of third-party hardware devices. Today, we want to examine the results we saw within the first two weeks of the detection being live.
As a reminder, third-party hardware devices used to provide a player with an unfair advantage are against our Security and Enforcement Policy. Players found to be using these devices will be served warnings and account penalties.
Within the first two weeks of launching this detection we saw a 59% drop in any use of these devices across Modern Warfare II and Warzone – inclusive of MWII Ranked Play (Warzone Ranked had not launched within this window). Of those users, 57% of them did not utilize the device again, whereas 43% once again attempted to circumvent the policy.
Repeat offenders and those continuing to use these devices without pause have been penalized. Malicious use of these devices may result in account suspensions – up to permanent account bans.
Like all anti-cheat systems, the moment we announced our detections, cheat makers and cheaters worked to find new ways to play unfairly. Our detection methods and systems for this detection (and others) have seen consistent updates and we have multiple methods of approach to identify the use of these devices. These, like all detections, will continue to evolve and update to combat cheating.
In-Game Reporting Update