Trojan exploits Sony DRM rootkit

[Alpine]

BRITISH FIRM Sophos said that a Trojan which exploits Sony's DRM copy protection is in the wild.



The Stinx-E trojan appears to have been spammed to email addresses under the guise of a message with files like Article+Photos.exe.

Said Graham Cluley, senior tech consultant at Sophos: "Sony's DRM copy protection has opened up a vulnerability which hackers and virus writers are now exploiting."

The firm said it will issue a tool later today which detects the existence of Sony DRM copy protection on Windows computers, disable it, and stop it from re-installing. It is acting on "customers' concerns that the software on Sony's CDs is introducing a vulnerability which hackers and virus writers are able to exploit," he said. "We will give customers the ability to determine if their computers suffer from the vulnerability and remove it if necessary."

The INQuirer

[DoG]

Been waiting for this to happen since the DRM rootkit was found and announced so i'm not suprised. Maybe now Sony will get what they deserve- i'm just waiting for a goverment computer to be exploited in this manner to see how much sh1t flies!

[KingCobra]

This is a BIG step backwards for all digital rights management. Glad to see this, because we have enough crap running on our systems already.

Quote:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberty group, said it is hearing from people who have run into problems with the copy protection software. It is considering filing its own lawsuit, said EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz.

Manual attempts to remove the software can disable the PC's CD drive. Sony offers an uninstallation program, but consumers must request it by filling out two forms on the Internet.

Code:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051111/ap_on_hi_te/sony_copy_protection