Anti-Cheat: "Battlefield 6" and "Call of Duty Black Ops 7" need Secure Boot

No program starts without UEFI Secure Boot. The upcoming shooters “Battlefield 6” and “Call of Duty Black Ops 7” require TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, as their developers independently announced. In both cases, the UEFI security function is intended to protect against cheaters in the multiplayer modes.

UEFI Secure Boot is a security measure that must be activated in the BIOS. It is intended to protect against so-called bootkits – malware variants that nestle in the bootloader and launch themselves before the operating system. Malware installed in this way is particularly difficult to detect by security software. Cheat programs can also exploit this mechanism.

Both “Call of Duty Black Ops 7” and “Battlefield 6” also require a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) according to specification 2.0, which is one of the prerequisites for Windows 11. If it is not already activated, it must also be switched on in the BIOS of the mainboard.

Secure Boot will also be mandatory for existing games

“Battlefield” fans may already be familiar with the Secure Boot requirement if they have recently played “Battlefield 2042.” Secure Boot has already been a requirement for the latest “Battlefield” shooter since patch 8.8 was released at the end of May. “Call of Duty” developer Activision also wants to make Secure Boot mandatory in an upcoming patch for “Call of Duty Black Ops 6” and “Call of Duty Warzone.”

You can check whether Secure Boot is activated in Windows using the msinfo32 run command, for example, and TPM information can be found using the tpm.msc command. Often, both security functions should already be activated.

If TPM or Secure Boot are not activated, there is no way around the BIOS. This is not a problem for experienced users, but both games are aimed at the gaming mainstream. Some fans may therefore have to leave their comfort zone to be able to play the new games on their PC. Instructions for activating TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot have been collected by EA, among others. The exact procedure varies depending on the motherboard manufacturer and BIOS installed.

Although TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot also work with Linux, EA and Activision generally lock out Linux systems with their anti-cheat systems. The shooters can therefore also not be played on the Steam Deck. In the past, EA has written that Linux systems have been noticed as a gateway for exploits and cheats.

(dahe)