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November 13, 2005

Windows Hell - Another Reason to Dislike the Sony/BMG Copy Protection Hack

by Ferdinand T Cat

A while back we reported on Sony's Sneaky Copy Protection scheme. If you play a copy-protected Sony CD on your Windows PC, it will install an invisible software package that prevents you from making more than three copies of songs on the CD. The annoying thing about the package is that it's almost impossible to remove. (Reformatting your hard drive and installing everything from scratch is the recommended procedure.) Now, it turns out that there is an email Trojan that uses the Sony software to hide itself.

Sony's software hooks into the disk I/O services at a very low level in order to hide its files from the PC user. The Troj/StinxE virus uses this ability to hide the trojan program from anti-virus software. The fact that it's even possible to do that is a problem WIndows will have to address, and soon.

In the meantime, Synamtec has a tool to detect and remove the Sony DRM application (scroll down to "removal instructions") and Sophos has a tool to disable the Sony DRM's stealth capabilities and remove the virus that exploits it.

All of this is an excellent reason to stop buying CDs and do all your music shopping online, although I suspect that's not the result Sony wanted from all this.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat


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