Activision drops a year‑end anti‑cheat recap for Black Ops 7, highlighting bans, detections, and new tools used throughout 2025

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With 2025 coming to a close, everyone’s seeing those year-end summaries on social media. Activision’s Team RICOCHET has released its own, and it’s a bit unique. Instead of a personal wrap-up, it details everything the Ricochet anti-cheat system accomplished over the past year in a report called ‘2025 Shutdowns Wrapped’.

The Team RICOCHET anti-cheat system has resulted in over 800,000 permanent bans in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Black Ops 6, and Warzone. This is thanks to their work identifying and stopping cheaters.

When season one of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched with Call of Duty: Warzone, a surge of hackers entered the game. This happened because the game’s anti-cheat system experienced data problems and wasn’t working correctly.

As a huge Call of Duty fan, I was really glad to hear that Activision and the team behind Black Ops 6 were taking cheating seriously. They actually shifted some of their post-launch plans to focus more on stopping cheaters, which is awesome! It wasn’t just about fixing things in the game either – their legal team started going after the people *making* and *selling* the cheats, sending them legal warnings to shut things down. It’s a great sign they’re tackling the problem from all sides!

Team RICOCHET explained in a Call of Duty blog post that their aim is to create fairer matches with quicker cheat detection and a more secure gaming experience for everyone.

Team RICOCHET

Even though Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 just came out a month ago, Activision is already making good progress against cheaters. They’ve successfully disrupted 39 sellers of cheats, and five sellers, along with three major cheat providers, have completely gone out of business.

When Black Ops 7 releases, players will need to have Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 enabled on their computers to play. The anti-cheat system will also be added to Call of Duty: Warzone when Season One of Black Ops 7 is released.

As a researcher tracking online game integrity, I’ve been following the efforts to combat cheating in Call of Duty, and the results have been really encouraging. Since the launch of Black Ops 6 last year, we’ve seen a significant crackdown on cheat providers. Our team successfully disrupted a total of 295 reseller operations, and importantly, 53 of those resellers have completely shut down. We also managed to take down 11 major cheat vendors themselves, which is a substantial step towards a fairer playing field.

This account was banned. 🔨- #TeamRICOCHETDecember 19, 2025

Since the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the Team RICOCHET anti-cheat team has been consistently updating their methods for fighting cheaters. They report that these new tools resulted in a beta test for BO7 that was almost entirely free of cheating. The team is also actively monitoring social media, responding to players who report suspicious activity and announcing when cheater accounts are banned.

The Shutdowns Wrapped event highlights Team RICOCHET’s achievements in fighting cheaters in Call of Duty, but their work isn’t finished. In a recent update, the team announced plans to further improve security by expanding requirements for TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, and introducing a new tool – the Secure Attestation Wizard – to help players confirm their PCs are properly set up to play the game securely.

Team RICOCHET explained in a Call of Duty blog post that their aim is to create fairer matches with quicker cheat detection and a more secure gaming experience for all players.

Were you surprised by the latest numbers on cheating, or does it still seem like some players are getting away with it? We’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if you’ve noticed any changes – good or bad – in Black Ops 7 this year. The anti-cheat team believes they’re making headway, but what really matters is how players are experiencing the game.

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2025-12-23 01:40