Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Sony Rootkit gets zapped Last week, we told you how some recent Sony music CDs contain a "rootkit" component that stealthily installs itself on your computer's hard disk. In response to customer concerns about this, Microsoft has decided to include this software's signature in its Malicious Software Removal Tool. So if you're worried about whether the rootkit has been installed on your computer, head on over to
and run the tool when the December update comes out.
Meanwhile, Sony itself has zapped the rootkit technology, at least temporarily. They announced last week that they're stopping production of CDs using it and will re-examine their copy protection initiative. To be fair to Sony, the DRM code that installs the rootkit was written by a digital rights management company with which they contracted. Sony has released a software patch to disable the DRM software. See
It's a good thing, too, because at least three Trojans have already been identified that exploit the Sony DRM technology to hide their files on users' computers. See
