Why Does Call of Duty Need Secure Boot for Anti-Cheat

Since its debut in 2003, Call of Duty has grown into one of the most iconic first-person shooter franchises in gaming history. With annual releases and millions of players worldwide, the series is known for its fast-paced gunplay, cinematic campaigns, and highly competitive multiplayer modes. However, with such massive popularity comes an equally large problem: cheating.

Over the years, COD titles have become a hotbed for cheaters. From wallhacks and aimbots to recoil eliminators and speed hacks, these malicious tools have severely disrupted the competitive integrity of the game. Even the introduction of the Ricochet Anti-Cheat system was not enough to completely eliminate the problem.

Therefore, Activision has also incorporated Secure Boot requirements in its latest release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. This system-level protection marks a significant shift in anti-cheat mechanisms for competitive shooter games. So, let’s dive into everything about Secure Boot in Call of Duty.

Why FPS Games Are the Prime Targets for Cheating

First-person shooters are perhaps the most cheat-prone genre in gaming. The reason is simple: reaction time, aim accuracy, and player awareness are key factors that determine victory or defeat.

In FPS games, even a 0.1-second advantage can be the difference between life and death. That's why cheats like aimbots, ESP, and wallhacks are so devastating—they give players inhuman capabilities that remove any sense of fairness or skill.

Moreover, FPS games are mostly PVP-focused, which means every cheater directly ruins the experience of other players. This creates a toxic environment that discourages legitimate players and erodes trust in the game. As cheaters become more sophisticated, developers need to fight back with equally advanced tools.

Secure Boot vs Traditional Anti-Cheat Methods

Many players wonder why Call of Duty, as a long-standing classic game with many existing anti-cheat mechanisms, still needs to add Secure Boot. Indeed, before Secure Boot, Call of Duty employed various traditional anti-cheat techniques:

• Client-side behavior monitoring
• Kernel-level anti-cheat drivers
• Server-side analytics for abnormal patterns

While these methods were effective to some extent, they were still vulnerable. Hackers developed ways to hide or spoof their cheats, often injecting them during system startup or before the anti-cheat services were active.

Secure Boot changes the game entirely.

Secure Boot is not an anti-cheat tool itself—it's a system-level security feature built into modern UEFI BIOS. It ensures that only digitally signed, trusted software and drivers can load during the boot process. In essence, it stops malicious kernel-level drivers or tampered system files from executing at all.

Why Secure Boot Is Superior:

• Early Intervention: Secure Boot kicks in before the operating system loads, blocking cheats that try to hook into the system at startup.
• Trusted Environment: It creates a clean, tamper-free environment for anti-cheat systems to function more reliably.
• Root Access Prevention: Many advanced cheats operate at the kernel level. Secure Boot limits this significantly.
• Harder to Bypass: Unlike software anti-cheats that can be disabled or spoofed, Secure Boot operates at a hardware-firmware level, making bypass attempts far more difficult.

Games Using Secure Boot

Black Ops is not alone in adopting Secure Boot as part of its anti-cheat strategy. Several other major competitive titles have followed suit:

• Valorant: Riot Games' Vanguard anti-cheat requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 to run.
• Battlefield 6: EA has confirmed Secure Boot as a mandatory requirement for launching the game.
• Escape from Tarkov (EFT): While not officially confirmed, community reports suggest that upcoming patches are incorporating Secure Boot checks.
• Apex Legends (beta testing phase): Some users have noticed Secure Boot enforcement during the testing of new anti-cheat modules.

These games all share one trait: a competitive, online multiplayer experience where cheating directly affects other players. By integrating Secure Boot, developers aim to shut the door on the most dangerous and persistent forms of hacking.

Can Secure Boot Truly Eliminate Cheating Completely?

There is no definitive answer to this, but based on past experience, no anti-cheat method has ever truly eradicated all cheating behaviors, as technology is constantly evolving. Of course, at this stage, Secure Boot still holds incomparable advantages:

1. Deeper Cheat Prevention: Modern cheats don’t just run on top of the game—they infiltrate the OS and BIOS layers. Secure Boot intercepts them at the earliest possible point.
2. Better Hardware Compatibility: With Windows 11 making Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 standard requirements, most modern PCs are already compatible.
3. Restoring Player Trust: A clean competitive environment encourages legitimate players to stay and invest more time and money into the game.
4. Security Ecosystem Integration: Secure Boot allows anti-cheat systems to integrate with hardware and OS-level protections, creating a more robust security network.
5. Deterrence Effect: It raises the bar for cheat developers. Bypassing Secure Boot requires significant effort and resources, making widespread cheating less feasible.

All these factors contribute to why major FPS franchises are embracing this technology. It's not just about reacting to current cheat trends—it's about future-proofing competitive integrity.

How to Check if Secure Boot is Enabled?

Although Secure Boot has reduced cheating, it has also created obstacles for many players. Numerous users struggle with game crashes and launch failures, yet they don't know how to resolve these issues. Therefore, we recommend using GearUP. It supports one-click detection to check whether your Secure Boot and TPM are enabled, as well as whether your hard drive is formatted as GPT. Additionally, it provides setup tutorials for all major brands, helping you effortlessly and quickly resolve Call of Duty Secure Boot issues so you can enjoy the game.

Conclusion

Secure Boot is the new frontier in the fight against cheating in FPS games. By integrating it into Call of Duty, Activision is taking a firm stance on fair play. This system-level defense stops many cheats before they even get a chance to run. For players seeking both protection and performance, combining Secure Boot with GearUP Booster delivers a superior, cheat-free experience. The future of fair FPS gaming starts here.