The recently released PlayStation ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 achieved immediate popularity on the PS Store, yet this success proved short-lived as hackers swiftly exploited the games. Players across both generations reported widespread issues including illegitimate maximum-level accounts, negative experience point attacks that locked victims below the starting level, and wall-penetration visibility exploits. The most severely compromised playlists—Ground War and Domination—saw Activision temporarily remove them from rotation before restoring them with preliminary countermeasures.

The hacking outbreak stems partly from the ports' reliance on peer-to-peer matchmaking rather than dedicated server infrastructure, allowing exploits to propagate freely. Players circumvent restrictions by uploading PlayStation 4 save files to third-party modification services, then downloading the altered versions onto their accounts—a pathway that functions across both PS4 and PS5 since the ports support cross-generational play. Activision responded by implementing a server-side patch that restored negatively-affected players to level 20 and signalled further corrective measures to follow, though some players have called for a comprehensive reset of all progression to resolve the crisis.