Caltrose25V5

Caltrose25V5 (California City Trojan Horse 25V5) was a trojan horse that was created on March 26, 2020 by two unknown hackers and was reportedly installed onto a community server via server computer. It was a notorious trojan horse dumping unknown viruses which reduces speed to all players by 70% and increasing speed to the hackers' accounts (operated by bots) by 80% and having auto aimbot enabled.

One community server was affected by this virus before potentially sending more to other servers. Servers with the Caltrose25V5 trojan horse have also seen popup ads, as well as glitches in the servers preventing players from leaving the spawnrooms while in-game.

On March 29, 2020, CCTV Productions began attempts to dismantle the trojan horse by banning anymore community server creations as well as not being able to play on community servers, and giving out ACS Bans to accounts with the virus. Other rules have also been added, with community server admins needing to take action to help stop the trojan by deleting affected servers and relaunching them with the new ACS update being provided by ATBW Blog to prevent any new servers from catching the trojan horse. Anyone who joined a community server, with or without the virus were permanently ACS banned with no negotiations or exceptions, and the rules also extended to California City Street Racers as well to prevent further spread of this horse.

On April 4, 2020, the trojan horse destroyed its first casual server, damaging and destroying the game by doing the same thing as with other servers, prompting more serious measures, while the trojan horses in community servers have been destroyed by ATBW Blog's new ACS System, dropping from 15,000 to only 6,000, though playing on community servers was still banned alongside casual and competitive mode. The community server play ban will be lifted once it is completely destroyed from there on. More frightening, due to the bot accounts not even being actual accounts at all, they are very hard to ban, and the trojan not being an actual computer program prompts more serious measures to destroy it. At least 350 Casual servers have been impacted.

On Casual and Competitive, it was even harder to eliminate the spread because unlike the community servers, which loads specific ones with names easy to tell if infected or not, on Casual and Competitive, there is no list of servers at all and instead finds a random server. Even as mechanics search for infected servers, it is even harder because if there are no players in either mode, then the horse cannot be eliminated, thus since April 5, 2020, playing on any casual or competitive server has been heavily banned until the trojan was completely eliminated.

On April 8, 2020, the number of community servers impacted by the trojan horse was dropped to around 3,000 due to the new ACS installment on a number of community servers, as where casual it remains intact destroying those servers. Kirti Mang eventually extended the ban on playing casual due to many players simply not cooperating. Game Staff and Global Administrators of the game and their other one, California City Street Racers have been warning users not to play casual in California City Defense until the trojan horse is destroyed completely. Once the trojan horse is defeated, CCTV plans to press charges on the two hackers if they are found to have been responsible for the creation of this trojan horse. CCTV even predicts this can take months before the trojan is destroyed completely, and the trojan horse could come back in 5 years, according to a message revealed by a mechanical engineer who was destroying the trojan-virus.

On April 16, 2020, more than dozens of casual servers of both California City Defense and California City Street Racers, but less than 2,000 for community servers for California City Defense, which is where it started. It is still worse nonetheless than it was on April 4. There have already been strict rules made during this which will become permanent after it ends, which includes adding recaptchas to those that create accounts or logs back into their accounts and even adding one for password-protected servers, as well as stronger measures to prevent any similar trojans of this type, including Tetrahorse04V1 in 2008, which significantly impacted online games by Calligraphy Studios and lasted a year.

On April 25, 2020, the trojan horse began declining, due to extensive measures to prevent it from attacking the servers. Most community servers have already been upgraded to ACS and will now make ACS mandatory permanently starting this date. Attacks in community servers have not been reported as of this date, but there's still more to come, though the trojan horse is finally dropping for good, thanks to engineers and players' cooperation. On May 3, 2020 however, was when the horse ended for good, with its last server being in a casual server.

On May 13, 2020, around 2:00 AM, the two hackers were reportedly questioned over 50 times by agents and were eventually arrested and charged with hacking. Their names have been identified as of May 30, 2020, and as of September 4, 2020, they have been sentenced to 4 years in prison with three and a half years suspended.

How it works
Caltrose25V5, like many other trojan horses, is a form of malware that misleads users of its true intent, including installing popup ads, most often computer system update scams. Unlike most other trojan horses, which does not inject viruses into other files or otherwise propagate themselves, this trojan is almost opposite as it installs unknown viruses into servers by spawning bot accounts with 80% increase in speed, with other players having speed reduced by 70%. The trojan virus is capable of injecting viruses to at least 10 clients in the game, including two copies of the trojan horse, which may spread to other servers.

The trojan was capable of bypassing ACS protected servers and injecting viruses to remove the shield from those servers. At least 200 community servers were impacted by the malicious trojan as of March 28, 2020, destroying the servers. It would also not only automatically enable aimbot to the bot accounts created, but makes the bot accounts immune to being killed by players on the opposite team while instantly killing players within seconds while also being able to see through walls and remove spawnroom doors, thus making them hacking in-game and making it very difficult to ban the accounts due to the trojan virus. As a result, players were completely barred from playing community servers until the trojan is stopped completely. Game administrators thoroughly checked all community servers to make sure no players were in those servers until the trojan is removed.

The trojan was also very hard to destroy since it injects two additional copies into other players, alongside the virus that slows them in the game by 70%. For this to be possible, the game administrators would need to access the computer to find the malicious program that destroys many community servers. It is also almost impossible to remove the trojan virus since it clones itself and injects two in at least 10 different clients in the game, making it very hard to eliminate the malicious program. Further, the trojan also makes its way into the player's computer and hides in the computer's game files that are installed on it.

Impacts
On April 1, 2020, new rules were also made, including admins being responsible for ACS on the community servers they patrol on, as well as upgrading to a stronger ACS system. If admins did not comply to this new rule, then their accounts would be permanently banned or deleted completely, and the server possibly being closed permanently or deleted if needed, as they warned everyone on the main menu on the front page. Tighter security measures were also added to prevent similar trojan viruses, including strong ad-blockers and stronger ACS security for those servers. This is the first time ACS had to be upgraded in games since Tetrahorse04V1 in 2008, which impacted Deer Tracks, an online racing game by Calligraphy Studios.

Further, temporary rules were made including account deletions to prevent further spread of this trojan to any other sever other than casual mode, as well as only allowing 6 players in casual servers to hammer down the spread of the malicious trojan. All Caltrose25V5 Infected community servers were deleted by the game administrators and all other servers not infected by the trojan will be fixed to have the latest version of ACS.

Temporary Rules

 * Users could not play casual or competitive on either online game or risk having their accounts banned
 * Unprotected community servers were shut down for operators to install the newest version of ACS
 * Trading in any form was strictly prohibited
 * All new servers were required to have ACS Security before they can be launched

Permanent Rules

 * All users regardless if confirmed or not will always have to go through a recaptcha for every time they log back in. Previously, only new users had to go through this and it was only under certain conditions.
 * All ACS protected servers will be using the new ACS server and Casual and Competitive will both have tougher ACS protected servers, destroying further program viruses like this.

Post Caltrose25V5 Era
After being defeated on May 3, 2020, CCTV Online imposed new rules for server operators, as well as banning anyone under 18 from operating a community server of their own, as well as adding extensive security measures to prevent further attacks, including requiring VPNs for all community servers, which were previously optional since June 4, 2019 and initially banned when the game first came out. Antiviral plugins were also required for server operators as well.

Martha Woods from Martha Woods Entertainment eventually use these same requirements once opening up Martha Woods Studio on January 27, 2021, nine months and one day after the start of the attack.

These were the first major changes on ATBW Blog in general since Deltahorse35V5 from 2003 to 2006.

Trend & Meme
After it debuted in 2020, the trojan horse became a sensation and has even appeared in an episode of California City that aired on April 14, 2020, where the trojan horse virus, who is an anthropomorphic horse in the episode, jumps out of a computer screen while Lamar is brought by Tyler to one of his friend's houses. The virus even appeared in Reese Comedies by CCTV's subsidiary Revolver Media and other talk shows. Apparel; shirts, pants, shoes, socks, etc. promoting Caltrose25V5 were also made by third party companies, which are sold in CCTV Gift Shop.

A commercial was also launched in April 2020 as well, warning players not to play casual or competitive servers and to turn on ACS when starting a new community server, as well as warning players to only play protected servers. This ad aired on many ATBW networks, including CCTV Network (March 5, 2020). CLP Network also even aired a special news broadcasting show on its business news channel covering news about Caltrose25V5 attacking CCTV servers.