Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players are being attacked by hackers, who are infecting them with malware that spreads automatically in game lobbies.
A Steam user gave warning to the players about the issue and posted a thread recommending a virus scan.
The user wrote: “Make sure you have a virus scanner before using this game, they attack using hacked lobbies [by] replacing dsound.dll.” Under that same thread, another user also revealed that they had analysed the malware, describing it as a worm based on text strings found in its code.
A computer worm is a subset of Trojan horse malware that can self-replicate from one computer to another without requiring human activation, according to Malwarebytes.
A post on the Call of Duty Updates Twitter page vaguely acknowledges the issue. It said: “Multiplayer for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) on Steam was brought offline while we investigate reports of an issue.”
It is not yet clear as to why hackers are spreading malware through the game lobbies, as the game is nearly fourteen years old and has a small community of players.
Steamcharts has also revealed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players peaked at 825 over the last 30 days.
The malware is listed on the online repository VirusTotal, with 14 security vendors marking flagging the file as malicious.