AimBots – An automated program like the own in the video above that aims puts your sights quickly and perfectly on the target players head. Most aimbots while efficient at getting kills, are extremely easy to identify because the rate of kills and number of headshots are so unnatural. There are aimbots which try to be more natural looking, but to an observant player they are easy to foil.

WallHacks – A program that shows enemy players silhouettes in bright colors through walls and all types of materials. Wallhacks are often coupled with aimbots to get even more kills. It is more dangerous and difficult to stop when wallhacks are used alone. As long as the player doesn’t make it incredibly obvious that they have an wall hack by getting a huge amount of kills with bullet penetration, they can claim they just got lucky or they saw knew the enemy thanks to a UAV. People that use hacks are usually not this subtle about getting kills, because their end goal is to be the center of attention. If you suspect someone is wall hacking though try equipping UAV Jammer and a silenced weapon, if they continue to get unbelievable kills through walls chances are they are wall hacking. Take a look at the video below for an example.

Speed Hacks – Also related to lag hacks, essentially a hack that allows the player to move more quickly than anyone else. Speed hacks can be done by messing with the data packets as they travel to the server or by simply hacking the game to make you move faster. This can make players move at light speed or appear to disappear and reappear across the map. Lag hacks can be difficult to stop because the player can just claim that the server or his internet connection is causing the issue. Even then though lagging player can just be kicked.

Glitching – The only hack that doesn’t require some sort of external program or support. Glitching is simply taking advantage of problems with the games coding, whether it is jumping outside of the normal map area or being able to see through walls on some buildings. Glitching is banned on most, but not all servers and is easy to prevent and identify if the server has spectator mode or kill cams enabled.

Stopping hacking and aimbots is important for the health of COD4 and any other video game out there. So what can be done to stop hacking? Monitoring systems like Punkbuster are easy to get around and often cause more problems for legitimate players. Unless they improve by leaps and bounds hackers will be able to stay ahead of them. The best solution is vigilant players and server admins. In particular the voting system in Call of Duty 4 which allows a majority of players to kick a hacking player is a good start. At this point though the voting system is hackable to rig the voting which means it to is far from perfect. There is no perfect solution, the best thing you can do is minimize your risk by playing with players you trust and an active administrator.

First make sure you are playing Search and Destroy, this will only work for that Call of Duty gametype. Then what you want to do is create a class with a SMG as your main weapon and Extreme Conditioning as your 3rd Perk, the rest of the class doesn’t matter. Also be sure to have another strong class on hand without Extreme Conditioning as your 3rd perk.

Once the S&D starts you should be out of the gates sprinting towards a nice place in enemy territory where you can set up shop. Do not fire your weapon or throw grenades on the way. After your 8 seconds of sprint time find a safe location where you aren’t in any immediate danger. Press Escape to get to the menu screen and select the class you created without Extreme Conditioning. Your class should change instantly to the one you just selected. The end gain here is 4 seconds of free sprinting with full choice of what you want in your 3rd perk slot. This works because of the way S&D games are set up, you have a 15 second grace period at the beginning of each game where you can change your class as many times as you wish; assuming you haven’t fired your weapon.

4 seconds of sprint time may not sound like a huge advantage, but if you use it correctly it can be. For example you can equip your SMG and Extreme Conditioning, get yourself in a nice sniping position and switch over to the M21 with Iron Lungs and lay waste to the unsuspecting enemy forces running in to take their positions. Please try it for yourself and let me know how it works for you.