Throwback Thursday: Inside Sony's rootkit

This Throwback Thursday, we turn the clock back ten years, when the discovery of a rootkit ignited a firestorm of criticism for Sony.

Rootkits are common among modern malware, and it seems hard to believe that ten years ago they were a little known phenomenon — that was until the discovery of the Sony rootkit brought this form of stealthy malware firmly into the public's awareness.

A few days ago was the tenth anniversary of the discovery and exposure of the Sony rootkit: on 31 October 2005, Winternals researcher Mark Russinovich revealed on his blog that Sony BMG Music Entertainment was distributing a copy-protection scheme with music CDs that secretly installed a rootkit on computers.

Mark documented the findings in his blog, and a firestorm of criticism aimed at Sony ensued. The furore centred on the fact that Sony's digital rights management (DRM) software used the rootkit's cloaking to hide its presence from computer users without asking them explicitly for consent to such behaviour, or even noting it in the EULA. As the story unfolded more problems came to light, including the 'phone home' behaviour of the player that shipped on the CD, possible use of LGPL software in the player, and security problems in the ActiveX control that Sony provided originally as its uninstaller. Eventually, Sony discontinued the production of CDs using this DRM technology, recalled all of the CDs containing it, offered existing customers an exchange for CDs without the DRM software, and provided a stand-alone executable uninstaller.

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