Sony CD protection sparks security concerns

Darius Chang | Nov 14, 2005

Mark Russinovich was doing a routine test this week of computer security software he'd co-written, when he made a surprising discovery: Something new was hiding itself deep inside his PC's guts.

It took some time for Russinovich, an experienced programmer who has written a book on the Windows operating system for Microsoft, to track down exactly what was happening, but he ultimately traced it to code left behind by a recent CD he'd bought and played on his computer.

The SonyBMG-produced Van Zant album had been advertised as copy-protected when he'd bought it on Amazon.com, and he'd clicked through an installation agreement when he put the disc in his computer. What he later found is that the software had used a sophisticated cloaking technique that involves a "root kit"--something not dangerous in itself, but a tool often used by virus writers to hide all traces of their work on a computer. Read more