IW targets Modern Warfare 2 PS3 hacks

By Tom Bramwell Published 25 January, 2011

Robert Bowling had a good meeting.

Infinity Ward is still working to resolve hacking issues that have impacted Modern Warfare 2 players on PlayStation 3, which it last week blamed on crumbling PS3 security.

"I just left a security meeting with the coders here at Infinity Ward where we discussed a lot of solutions. I feel good about the meeting, but of course I can't go into detail on the possible solutions we discussed as we don't want to give out any information that could potentially hinder the security any further," community man Robert Bowling wrote in an update to his original post acknowledging the problems.

"Once I have more information, I will post it here. The key factor I want you to know is, that while any update takes time, we are looking to make the process as quick as possible and nothing is being left unattended."

Bowling said that the studio's "main focus" was on "preventing hackers from affecting legitimate players" and "addressing users who have already been affected".

Players have lost progress, had their statistics changed and received obscene messages through the game, according to posts on the developer's forum, leading Infinity Ward to pledge that it won't rely on platform-level security in future releases.

While PS3's widely reported security meltdown has the potential to affect any game on the system, Modern Warfare 2 is disproportionately impacted due to the fact everyone was issued with a copy at birth.

Call of Duty: Black Ops, released in November, appears to be less affected, presumably because nobody on PS3 can actually play it.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Murton #1 1 year ago

    Robert Bowling last week: "Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they're played on, therefore; updates to the game through patches will not resolve this problem, unless the security exploit itself is resolved on the platform."

    So what happened Mr Bowling? Did you change your mind or were you mis-informed prior to your original post?

  • 00.00.01 #2 1 year ago

    Ghehe 402, so much for 'This is all caused by the PS3's security breach, there's nothing we can do!'.
    One a tw@t, always a tw@t. Now go back to tweeting the community.

  • phycus #3 1 year ago

    COD4 and WAW were just as bad imho - which means they have known about this since then and have done nothing to address the issues. And that was way before the ps3 itself was hacked.

  • Kenny79 #4 1 year ago

    The hacks were there almost from day 1. Its had fuck all to do with the security going down it was the lack of support from the developer.

    Robert "ass kisser" Bowling is trying it on so we buy the next shitty episode in the dead MW series. IW cant even make the next MW by them selves they had to get two more studios to help, how are those retards going to patch MW2?
    Edited by Kenny79 at 25/01/11 @ 09:01

  • PeterM #5 1 year ago

    I wonder if the fixes will make it into the PC build, which has had the same issues but since release.

    Silly question, but you know...

  • mrvinny000 #6 1 year ago

    I have an idea Mr Bowling , dedicated servers run by Activision or the dev , that way you have full control of what goes on . Not the cheap ass player hosted crap thats open to abuse you run now .
    Or is that cutting too much profit from your pockets?

  • Roarster #7 1 year ago

    Hacked console or no hacked console, there's something massively wrong with their server code if a client request can completely reset someone's experience level.

    Clearly they don't validate the requests coming from the client and completely trust everything they send, even if that is removing experience from a user, something their game doesn't even support.

    They can blame Sony all they want, but it's clear IW have totally messed up their coding as well.

  • funkateer #8 1 year ago

    "While PS3's widely reported security meltdown has the potential to affect any game on the system, Modern Warfare 2 is disproportionately impacted"

    What I don't understand is why Eurogamer blindly follows IW's statement that PS3's security hack is the cause of MW2's online issues, even though everyone knows that these issues where there long before the PS3 was hacked.

  • homerramone #9 1 year ago

    Given that hackers maanged to get at COD4 on the 360 I fail to see that this has anything at all to do with recent ps3 security developments !

    In my minds eye I can see Mr bowling going on like Basil Fawlty 'Stall them, you stupid woman! Tell them some lie.'

  • Paulie_P #10 1 year ago

    I'm fairly sure anybody using the 360 version has also received 'obscene messages' through their headset.

  • oreillymj #11 1 year ago

    Surely the glitches being enabled by hackers were left in the final retail code by IW. The hackers have just found a way of enabling them since the PS3 got hacked by probably setting some sort of debug flag.

    If so, why isn't this stuff removed completely when the gold master is compiled?

  • makeamazing #12 1 year ago

    EG Should be asking this guy if this is all Sony's security, why are these problems on the Xbox also...

  • weebl #13 1 year ago

    £10 says that they won't fix anything, as they'd know that more players would play MW2 rather than Black Ops. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they might have given some hackers the tip off to stop people from playing MW2.

  • man.the.king #14 1 year ago

    @homerramone

    "In my minds eye I can see Mr bowling going on like Basil Fawlty 'Stall them, you stupid woman! Tell them some lie.'"

    Haha - yes I sort of remember that. A pity Cleese made only 12 episodes. The VERY BEST sitcom in existence (imo) and it has only 12 episodes.

  • Mnia786 #15 1 year ago

    "Modern Warfare 2 is disproportionately impacted due to the fact everyone was issued with a copy at birth."

    Lol, legend!

  • Raider2k #16 1 year ago

    We all know that hackers exploited MW2 from day one...in fact on all platforms, but the PS3 version at moment is unplayable. It's been hacked to death, so the sooner IW & Sony address the issue the better! Whatever about these guys getting together in private lobbies & stripping the game mechanics down, but now they're running around in every public game doing whatever they want.
    If they can track down the idiots that are deranking people & messing around with ppl's stats, they should be locked of PSN!

  • cherryuk #17 1 year ago

    I was at level 40, played on a hacked level and now it's boosted me to Level 70!! I'm currently capped at level 70 due to the exp points x10 cheat used by an absolute a-hole! I'd rather go back to beginning to level 1 than be stuck on 70, can't do prestige or anything. How do I reset my online profile?

  • DRUNK3N-_-DRAGON #18 1 year ago

    I started to get bck into Mw1 and a couple of months l8R i got deranked and locked out of multyplayer...every time i put the game in my ps3 and go to multyplayer i can't pick a game mode because it doesn't let me..i have had it with all cod games, they R all riddled with hack wankers...i think activision should be fukn taking to the cleaners for this bull shit!

  • dmeyer1227 #19 1 year ago

    IW lost all my business thats for sure. Lets be honest why is IW and Activision blaming only sony? Well concidering Microdust pays them a boat load to promote the game for Xbox. Also gives them the excluisive on the map packs. Safe to say you dont bite the hand feeding you. The playstation hack came out last month. years after MW1 and MW2 how can you blame them? Xbox was hacked long ago but its sonys fault? ridiculously stupid move by IW and Activision to do so. I say IW gets bought by Microsoft then lets see were the blame goes. IW and Activision go FUCK yourselfs never will i buy anything that has either of those companys involved. Activision sucks anyway 14 Guitar heros in 4 years, Dj Hero 18 by 2013 and a C.O.D. every year like clockwork is getting quite old as is glad ive hung up my guns til Battlefield 3.