Players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are at risk of being infected by malware. According to a new report by JS, citing a Steam Forum post, hackers are injecting self-spreading malware into the game using hacked lobbies. This is for the original version of the game on Steam, released in 2009.
Players who enter a match and end up in one of these lobbies end up putting themselves at risk of their PC being infected. According to the Steam Forum post, players are recommended to use a virus scanner before playing. Just in case the malware is already there. JS notes that an anonymous game industry insider verified that the malware is a worm after a player posted on the forum suspecting that to be the case.
All of this comes a week or so after Microsoft fixed online lobbies for the Xbox 360 version of the game, causing a surge in Xbox Series X sales. Activision vaguely acknowledged the malware issues in a tweet on the official Call of Duty account over on X. Noting that servers were being “brought offline while we investigate reports of an issue.” To reiterate, this is for the 2009 version of the game and not the remake that was released last year. This also only appears to be impacting Steam players. So anyone playing on Xbox should be fine.
It isn’t clear what the malware is intended to do to Modern Warfare 2 players
According to the report, it’s not clear what the hackers are intending to do by spreading this malware. But the fact that it’s a worm suggests multiple bugs may have been found. Which hackers are now exploiting.
It doesn’t appear Activision has confirmed a fix yet. But if you’re still playing the old title on Steam you may want to hold off for the moment. You could also go play the current Modern Warfare II which is just about to head into season 05 next week. Seeing as there’s not much time left to shore up any unacquired stuff from the battle pass.