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 [Stupid Evil Bastard: Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.] Sony's latest DRM installs as a rootkit on your PC.: I’ve been following the saga unfolding over at Mark’s Sysinternals blog about his recent discovery that his PC suddenly had a rootkit installed on it thanks to a DRM scheme developed by a company called First 4 Internet that Sony BMG is using on copies of a Van Zant CD he had recently purchased. As you may recall I’ve written about rootkits before and how they scare the hell out of me because they make it possible to hide malicious software almost completely so it was quite a surprise to read about how a major company was using of a DRM system that makes use of rootkits to hide itself from users.

[tillnet: a journalist's notebook] Sony music: All ur hard drives are mine: Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files.

[Freedom-to-tinker.com] Freedom to Tinker: This may be an annoyance to music fans—unless you disable the driver, you’ll have a hard time playing any MediaMax-protected titles, let alone copying them to your iPod—but it’s also a security risk, since the driver is loaded as part of the Windows kernel and has the ability to control virtually any aspect of the computer’s operation. We don’t know whether the MediaMax driver contains any vulnerability that can be exploited to do further damage, but the way it is installed creates a dangerous precedent.

[Shrook.com] shrook.com : Privacy Digest: Privacy News (Civil Rights ...: EFF and Sony-BMG today announced the existence of a new security vulnerability that affects Sony-BMG CDs that include SunnComm MediaMax Version 5 copy protection software. The vulnerability was discovered by the security firm iSEC Partners after EFF requested an examination of the SunnComm software.

[Sysinternals.com] Mark's Sysinternals Blog: Sony: No More Rootkit - For Now: Perhaps the biggest news in the story last week is Sony’s first public response since one of their executives stated in a National Public Radio interview, “users don't know what a rootkit is, and therefore, don't care." Mid-day Friday Sony announced, with the hope that press coverage wouldn’t last through the weekend, that it would temporarily cease production of CD’s containing First 4 Internet’s XCP technology, the software that utilizes the rootkit. They have also finally added a link on the Sony BMG web site, under the News section, to the decloaking patch and uninstall link:

 [Colmsmyth.blogspot.com] Colm Smyth's Blog: "I would expect Microsoft to go into emergency patch mode and push .software but also their MediaMax software, which invades customer privacy even if the .

Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Privacy, Global Security Watch