Bad news for Call of Duty hackers, Activision just nuked the biggest cheat provider

Call of Duty might have some of the most recognisable antagonists in the shooter genre. The likes of General Shepherd and Makarov have gone toe-to-toe against real-life war revolutionists like Fidel Castro (and soon-to-be Saddam Hussein) for the honour of being the biggest bad in the series.

But there's one bigger threat to the multiplayer series than all of them combined: the hacker community.

These hackers have been dealt a bitter blow though, as Activision has just nuked one of the largest cheat providers and taken over its operations amid a massive lawsuit.

Activision takes over Call of Duty cheat provider's operations

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As a collective, hackers are the biggest current issue for the Call of Duty franchise, having ruined Warzone, and Activision has firing back at the providers of cheats by taking the companies to court.

On May 28, Activision officially succeeded in taking down EngineOwning, the single largest hack provider for Call of Duty, as the District Court of California ruled that the publishers had "suffered irreparable injuries".

The court has ruled that EngineOwning needs to pay a whopping $14,465,600 in damages to Activision, while also handing over its entire domain to the Call of Duty owners.

The fees in damages will likely serve as quite the deterrent to other cheat-providing companies and will put a stop to new accounts purchasing exploitatory software, at least from EngineOwning.

But what's more alarming for those pesky hackers is that Activision now controls EngineOwning, and will have access to all email addresses linked to sales, which could see quite a purge of existing cheaters get wiped from the face of Call of Duty.

It's been a long time coming, but it's one step towards Call of Duty being a much safer place to play, where Warzone and Ranked playlists will benefit the most.