Call of Duty no longer takes your PC's word for it — RICOCHET now verifies your system's security with Microsoft's cloud before a ranked match begins. The shift is called remote, or cloud-based, attestation. Instead of asking your machine whether TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are on and trusting the answer, RICOCHET asks Microsoft Azure to confirm it. That single change makes a tampered system far harder to pass off as legitimate.
If you've seen a "Failed Attestation Status" message or wondered why competitive lobbies now gate on hardware security, this is the mechanism behind it. Here's what cloud attestation does, why it's stronger than a local check, and what it means for you.
Quick reference: RICOCHET cloud attestation
| Property | Detail |
|---|---|
| What it checks | TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot state |
| Where it's verified | Microsoft Azure servers, not your PC |
| Where it applies | Warzone and Black Ops 7 Ranked Play |
| If you fail | "Failed Attestation Status," separate matching pool |
| Why | Confirm system integrity before competitive matches |
Local attestation vs remote attestation
The important distinction is who you trust to answer the question "did this PC boot clean?" A local, client-side check asks the machine about itself — and a sufficiently tampered machine can simply lie. Remote attestation moves that verification off the device: RICOCHET validates your TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot state through trusted Microsoft Azure servers, so the game isn't trusting what your system reports locally, it's asking an external authority to confirm it. A cheat that fakes a clean local state now has to fool Microsoft's cloud, not just the game client.
This builds on the TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot requirements Black Ops 7 already imposed, and it's the more rigorous cousin of the general hardware attestation concept.
How it fits into RICOCHET
Cloud attestation is a pre-match layer. RICOCHET introduced it for Ranked Play and has expanded it across competitive seasons, with later updates requiring modern PC security standards to access competitive playlists at all. It runs before a match begins, which shifts enforcement earlier in the timeline — catching a non-compliant system at the door rather than mid-game. Our Ricochet overview covers the engine as a whole; cloud attestation is the part that verifies the platform itself.
What "Failed Attestation Status" means for you
If your system doesn't meet the requirements, you'll see a Failed Attestation Status message and be placed into a separate matching pool rather than standard competitive lobbies. That separation is conceptually similar to the shadowban versus HWID ban split — it's a matchmaking-level consequence, not a hardware ban. The fix is usually straightforward: enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot in your UEFI. If you're not sure how, our guide on enabling TPM 2.0 walks through it.
How this connects to hardware identity
Attestation is, at its core, about proving hardware identity — confirming this is a genuine, unmodified platform with a real TPM and a verified boot chain. That's the same trust foundation that makes a hardware fingerprint reliable enough to anchor enforcement. By outsourcing the verification to Microsoft's cloud, RICOCHET strengthens that foundation and narrows the gap where spoofed local state used to slip through. It's another step in the broader move from trusting the client to trusting verifiable hardware.
FAQ
What is Failed Attestation Status in Call of Duty?
It's the message shown when RICOCHET's cloud attestation can't confirm your TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are enabled, which routes you into a separate matching pool.
Does cloud attestation read my personal data?
It validates platform security state (TPM and Secure Boot), not your files. The check is about system integrity, verified by Microsoft's servers.
How do I pass attestation?
Enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot in your UEFI/BIOS. On most Windows 11 machines they're already on.
Why is checking with Microsoft stronger than checking locally?
Because a tampered PC can lie about its own state. Verifying through an external trusted server makes that deception much harder.
The takeaway
RICOCHET's cloud attestation marks a clear shift: from trusting what your PC says about itself to having Microsoft's servers confirm it. It checks TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot before competitive play, sorts non-compliant systems into separate pools, and raises the bar for any cheat relying on a faked local state. For most players the action item is simple — enable TPM and Secure Boot — but the bigger story is the industry leaning harder on verifiable hardware identity, the same foundation that makes hardware bans stick.