You log in, expect to grind some Ranked, and suddenly the screen is blank. Or worse, you’re stuck in a "searching for match" loop that never ends. Welcome to the shadowban. Or the permanent hammer.
The last CoD ban wave wasn't just another routine cleanup. It felt personal for a lot of people. Activision’s Team Ricochet finally stopped playing nice, and the numbers are honestly staggering. We’re talking over 800,000 accounts wiped across Black Ops 6, Warzone, and the new Black Ops 7 ecosystem over the last year, with a massive spike hitting just as Season 1 integrated everything together.
What Really Happened With the Last CoD Ban Wave
Most people think these waves are just about catching the guy spinning in circles with an LMG. It's way deeper than that. This time, the devs went after the "boosting" economy.
You've seen them. The Level 1 accounts with Interstellar or Mastery camos that shouldn't exist. Ricochet started targeting the "Reseller" market. They didn't just ban the players; they disrupted nearly 300 reseller operations. Imagine spending $50 on a "pre-leveled" account only to have it vanish 48 hours later because the server realized the XP was farmed by a bot in a 24/7 shipment lobby.
💡 You might also like: Why the Disney Infinity Star Wars Starter Pack Still Matters for Collectors in 2026
The TPM 2.0 Drama
The biggest change—the one that actually broke the game for some legit players—was the mandatory shift to TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot on PC.
If you’re on Windows and your BIOS isn't configured right, you aren't playing. Period. Activision basically told the community: "If we can't trust your hardware at the root level, you don't get in." It's a hardcore move. It's designed to stop "spoofers"—software that lets cheaters pretend they have a different PC after getting banned.
- The Goal: Ensure the PC starts in a "trusted state."
- The Reality: A lot of frustrated gamers had to learn how to navigate their BIOS menus for the first time in a decade.
Why Ricochet is Actually Working (Sorta)
I know, I know. You still see a level 450 guy snapping to heads every three games. It's frustrating. But the data from the recent Black Ops 7 launch shows some wild progress. During the beta, detection times dropped to under three matches.
📖 Related: Grand Theft Auto Games Timeline: Why the Chronology is a Beautiful Mess
They’re using something called Remote Attestation. Instead of just checking your files locally, the game sends a "handshake" to an external server to verify your security settings. It makes it way harder to lie to the anti-cheat.
Boosting and the "Unlock All" Pivot
Since the old "Unlock All" hacks got nuked, cheaters moved to "services." You pay someone to join your lobby and let you kill them 100 times. Or you buy an account that someone else bot-leveled.
The last CoD ban wave specifically looked for "inhuman precision" and "anomalous movement patterns." If you're racking up 150 kills in a spot on the map that isn't a hotspot, the machine learning flags you. It’s not just looking at your aim anymore; it’s looking at your behavior.
👉 See also: Among Us Spider-Man: Why Everyone Is Still Obsessed With These Mods
The Pros Aren't Safe Either
There was a lot of noise on X (formerly Twitter) about pro-level players getting swept up. Some people claim they're "false bans." Honestly? While false positives happen, they’re rarer than the "I was just using a VPN" crowd wants you to believe.
When a ban wave hits 100,000+ accounts at once, it's usually because a specific "private" cheat provider got cracked. These providers promise they're "undiscovered" for years. Then, one Tuesday morning, every single customer they have gets the "Account Permanently Banned" message.
Actionable Steps to Protect Your Account
If you want to stay on the right side of the next last CoD ban wave, you have to be proactive. This isn't just about not cheating; it's about account hygiene.
- Enable 2FA immediately. A huge chunk of "cheaters" are actually regular people whose accounts were hacked and sold to cheaters. If your account is used for one game of Warzone with hacks, it's gone. Activision rarely reverses those.
- Check your BIOS. Make sure Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 are enabled. If you get a "System Incompatibility" error, don't try to bypass it with third-party scripts. That's a fast track to a hardware ID ban.
- Clean your PC. Seriously. Get rid of any "performance boosters" or macro software that interacts with the game’s memory. Even if it's just for a different game, Ricochet might see it running in the background and flag you.
- Stop the "Boosting" temptation. Don't join those "XP lobbies" advertised in Discord. The systems are now specifically looking for lobby-filling behavior, and they will wipe your progression.
The war between devs and cheat makers is never going to end. It's a cat-and-mouse game where the mouse has a PhD in computer science. But with the shift toward hardware-level requirements, the barrier to entry for cheaters is finally getting higher. Just make sure your own settings are locked down so you don't get caught in the crossfire.