With Modern Warfare 4 releasing this month, we’ve had to opportunity to ask the Senior Director of Game Security at Activision, David Andrews, about the upcoming changes to the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat and addressing some community concerns about new updates, like Server Culling, and more. Thank you to David Andrews and Activision for allowing us to have the interview, and providing the community with more context to the Anti-Cheat Systems. Let’s get into it:
7 Questions with Senior Director of Game Security, David Andrews.
David Andrews leads the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat Systems at Activision for Call of Duty. Recently, he did a reddit ‘AMA’ where questions we’re taking directly from the community and responded many burning questions. If you would like to read those questions and responses from September, the link to that thread will be here: RICOCHET AMA on Reddit. As a brief background on David Andrews, he worked at Rockstar Games for 10 Years on projects like GTA and Red Dead Online on their Anti-Cheat Systems before joining Activision. Additionally, he served in the US Air Force, and worked on engineering and security roles that supported the US Government.
Today, we’ve had the pleasure of asking David seven more questions about the RICOCHET Anti-Cheat Systems going into Modern Warfare 4, and the Upcoming Warzone Season 1 Integration:
Q1: How is RICOCHET detecting and enforcing against devices such as Cronus and XIM, and what should players know about using them?
A: “Generally speaking, we’re always looking for any available technical detections as well as behavioral signals Devices like Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix can modify inputs to create advantages like unusually consistent aim or recoil control, so our systems look for patterns that fall outside of what we’d consider the range of normal human play.
We also know that the manufacturers of these devices try to market them as accessibility tools. To be clear: They’re not. Using these devices violates our Security and Enforcement Policy and can result in a permanent ban.”
Q2: Why are TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot required for Modern Warfare 4, and how do they help protect the game?
A: “They help make sure a PC starts in a trusted state before a player enters a match. Secure Boot helps ensure that only trusted software loads when Windows starts, while TPM 2.0 verifies key parts of the system’s startup process.
RICOCHET Anti-Cheat uses remote attestation to verify that state through trusted external servers, making it harder for cheaters to spoof what the system is reporting. These features create a stronger foundation for our anti-cheat team to operate from, but they work alongside our other protections rather than replacing them. We talk a lot about our layered approach to security, and this is part of it.”
Q3: Does revealing the concept behind Server Culling give cheat developers enough information to work around it?
A: “No, sharing the concept doesn’t give cheaters more information. Their software can only show what the game sends to their device. A wallhack can’t reveal what the game doesn’t send to a cheater. That’s the idea behind this protection.
But server culling is one layer in the broader fight against cheating, not a single solution that eliminates every form of unfair play. There’s no silver bullet. We’ll constantly update and tune this tech to ensure we’re ahead in the cat-and-mouse game of cheating.”
Q4: Does Server Culling only protect PC players?
A: “Server Culling is a server-side protection, so it’s designed to benefit players across platforms. It’ll protect MW4 at launch and Warzone at Season 1 on both PC and console.”
Q5: What is the role of hardware bans in preventing repeat offenders from returning on new accounts or new games?
A: “Hardware bans make it much harder for a cheater to simply start over with a new account after Ricochet catches them. They raise the cost of returning and help stop repeat offenders from treating a ban as a temporary inconvenience.
Hardware bans are part of a larger system that includes account security, device and behavioral detections, and protections against evasion. No single measure stops every attempt to circumvent enforcement, but hardware-based action makes repeat abuse substantially harder.”
Q6: How does RICOCHET distinguish between a legitimate high-skill player and someone using cheats, especially in high-level Ranked Play?
A: “High-level players can move and react in ways that look unusual to someone watching a single clip, so enforcement decisions are not based on one impressive play or one report. We combine technical detections, gameplay analysis, telemetry, player reports, investigations and other information to build a complete picture.
At the same time, cheaters in high-ranked lobbies may use established accounts or activate cheats selectively to look legit. That’s why we’ve increased monitoring of competitive play, including the Top 250, and continuing to dedicate more resources to investigating suspected cheating, especially in Ranked Play. The goal is to protect legitimate high-skill players while taking action when the broader evidence supports it.”
Q7: What should players understand about reporting suspected cheaters, and how do player reports fit into RICOCHET’s broader detection and enforcement systems?
A: “Players should continue to report suspected cheating through the in-game reporting tools. Reports help surface accounts that may deserve a closer look and can provide useful context for investigators.
But like we’ve said, they’re one part of a much larger process. We also use technical detections, server-side analysis, behavioral signals, telemetry, replay tools, internal monitoring and manual review. No single report, clip or statistic determines whether someone is banned. Public clips can help flag cases, but the vast majority of enforcement comes from systems and investigations happening behind the scenes.”
THE END
Once again, thank you to David Andrews and Activision for this interview. Hopefully these answers some of the questions the community has been asking about, and if it hasn’t, ask us on our social channels and we may be able to do another interview in the future!
Stay connected with any new updates on Modern Warfare 4 & Warzone as they release on our Twitter, Facebook, and our YouTube Channel!
