Sony DRM = MalWare

[ajj]

Hey guys,
I found this article while searching Google-News. I thought it was really interesting/scary and worth letting othere people know about it.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27426

[jmcgon]

I found it humorous that the 'service pack' Sony put out to make the rootkit visible was in ActiveX format.

[dparm]

I saw this on Slashdot the other day. Absolutely ridiculous. Corporations are just becoming less and less liable for their actions.

[dparm]

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/34

Take that, Blizzard's attempt to stop cheaters!

[dtennant]

Another interesting article about Sony music software.....
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/11/09/sony_music_sounds_off_key/index.html

[dparm]

More good news...there's now a trojan that takes advantage of the rootkit.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/

[dparm]

And Sony is now pulling all those DRM discs...

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-11-11T183106Z_01_MOL166114_RTRIDST_0_TECH-SONY-COPYPROTECTION-DC.XML&archived=False

[dparm]

So just how bad is the rootkit? How many "calls home" (DNS lookups) have the rootkits performed? Check out the US, Asia, and Europe images located here (http://www.doxpara.com/).

Additionally, it would appear that the rootkit is open-source but doesn't include the source code, making it illegally distributed.

And Microsoft has stated that a patch will soon be available from Windows Update to remove the rootkit.

Sucks to be Sony.



US DNS lookups performed by the rootkit:
http://www.doxpara.com.nyud.net:8090/planetsony_usa.JPG

[jharriso]

Heh. Sony isn't doing much audio CD buisness between California and the Mississippi..

[dparm]

Another revelation...

The original creator of the rootkit worked with companies like Symantec to ensure it would not be detected or removed!

Read about it here:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051113164717817

[dparm]

Anyone up for some shirts?

http://www.cafepress.com/syscamo

[dparm]

I think 3M will get sued soon...because it turns out that if you put a small piece of transparent tape on the outer edge of the disc, you make the area with the DRM unreadable.

http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=136331

[jharriso]

Yeah, someone found a way around some copy protection a while back with the cunning use of a black permenant marker around the outer data track.

[dparm]

List of all CDs that have it:

http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/titles.html

[dparm]

Well, I finally saw my first case of the First 4 Sony DRM rootkit. It shows up in Safe Mode. When I saw $sys, I cringed.

The Lavasoft AriesRemoverInst tool did not successfully remove it.