Activision Cracks Down on Call of Duty Cheat Providers with Cease and Desist Letters

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After two major software companies offering cheats for Call of Duty were forced to close due to legal actions taken by Activision, it’s become slightly more challenging to cheat in the game.

As a researcher delving into the world of online gaming, I recently came across an intriguing development. The renowned Warzone player @Swishem announced on Twitter that two cheat providers, Two2nd and Tomware, unexpectedly ceased operations this week. In his post, he included a screenshot from what seems to be the Tomware Discord server, stating: “We are sad to inform you that all Call of Duty products have been permanently discontinued and will not be coming back.

The Tomware Discord post outlined possible penalties for its community members, such as timeouts and permanent bans, if they even casually discuss the cease and desist letter that the cheat provider received. Mentioning the lawyers who sent the Cease and Desist would also lead to a permanent ban from the cheat provider’s Discord channel.

In addition, Tomware’s group expressed gratitude towards Activision and their lawyers for maintaining a high level of professionalism. While Call of Duty cheats are no longer accessible on the Tomware platform, the site continues to operate, offering cheats for games such as Valorant and Fortnite that can be bought.

Appears that Two2nd has experienced a significant setback, now displaying only a white screen accompanied by a bold “Permanently Closed” notice where once it showcased various services like boosting and cheating options for numerous Call of Duty titles, Elden Ring, Fortnite, Helldivers 2, and even Starfield.

In Call of Duty, fighting cheaters has consistently been a challenging task. However, Team RICOCHET, the group responsible for the game’s exclusive anti-cheat software, has faced significant difficulties following the launch of Black Ops 6 Season 1. For instance, they admitted that an outage affected the functionality of their anti-cheat system, leading to a decision where console players could opt to play Ranked games separately from PC players.

In Black Ops 6 Season 2, new anti-cheat measures were implemented. However, Activision’s primary strategy to combat cheat manufacturers has consistently been through the legal system. This was evident in 2024 when, as a Microsoft-owned publisher, they successfully sued cheat developer EngineOwning and received over $14 million in damages.

As we approach Season 2, the developers and publishers of Call of Duty have emphasized their commitment to tackling game disruptions caused by cheaters. They plan to utilize all available resources, including legal action, to address this issue. It’s possible that more cease-and-desist letters will be issued to other cheat providers as they work diligently to clean up Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

In the past few months, Team RICOCHET has implemented mass bans affecting over 50,000 gamers. More recently, they enforced a ban wave targeting players who were abusing an in-game glitch, leading to ‘server crashes’ within Warzone.

In the process of brainstorming strategies for combating cheating, our team encounters a unique predicament: disclosing excessive details might arm cheat creators to evade our detection and prevention measures. On the other hand, revealing too little information raises doubts among players about the effectiveness of our anti-cheat systems or unfairly penalizing skilled gamers with unmerited bans.

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2025-02-22 17:40