Activision disables cheat detection 'workaround' that mistakenly bans Legit Modern Warfare 3 players

Important takeaways

  • Activision fixed an exploit in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 that allowed players to ban others, causing many to be accidentally banned.
  • An anti-cheat scan triggered by the chat term “Trigger Bot” caused bans, affecting legitimate players.
  • The discovery of the exploit could lead to cheaters possibly being banned along with falsely banned players.



Activision has disabled an exploit that allowed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 players to ban their opponents by simply sending them a message or a friend request, leaving many legitimate players unable to play the game. While the developers have said that they have unbanned accounts that fell victim to this exploit, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 fans are quite unhappy about the whole fiasco.

Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 players have been frustrated with cheaters for quite some time now. There was also a huge increase in the number of cheaters after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 debuted on Xbox Game Pass. Although the developers have made some improvements to the anti-cheat to solve the situation, it is still quite common to encounter cheaters in any other game. To make matters worse, some legitimate players have been accidentally banned over the past few days.


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In a new tweet, Activision reveals a critical fix it is implementing for the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat i Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Over the past few days, some players have been using an exploit to ban their opponents from the game. As a result, many legitimate players have been banned from the game. Activision has not detailed the details of the exploit, but it has said that all accounts banned due to the issue will be removed.


Incorrect signature scanning results in fake modern warfare 3 bans


But fans have actually discovered how the exploit worked. As Twitter user zebleer explains, the ban takes advantage of the signature scanning strategy used by RICOCHET Anti-Cheat in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Basically, the anti-cheat looks for signatures in memory to detect the use of cheat software. One of the signatures it looks for is the word “Trigger Bot”, which is a common cheating tactic used by cheaters to automatically fire while pointing at an enemy. Because of this, any player can type the word “Trigger Bot” in the chat or set it as their profile name and send a friend request, and this would result in the opponent being banned altogether.


The ramifications of this exploit go far beyond banning single players, as it is said that hotkey scripts existed that could get entire lobbies banned in Modern Warfare 3. The tweet also notes that Activision reversing the bans could potentially restore the accounts of cheaters who were banned due to signature scanning. Additionally, while Activision stated that a small number of accounts were affected, many in the community believe that thousands were falsely banned due to the exploit.

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