seattle.politics

Don't trust Sony!

/article/id,136439-c,trojanhorses/

quote

Deja Vu: Sony Using Rootkits Again, F-Secure Charges

A line of USB drives sold by Sony Electronics installs files in a hidden
folder that can be accessed and used by hackers, a Finnish security company
says.

Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

Monday, August 27, 2007 4:00 PM PDT
Recommend this story?
Yes0 Votes
No0 Votes
Please Wait...

A line of USB drives sold by Sony Electronics installs files in a hidden
folder that can be accessed and used by hackers, a Finnish security company
charged Monday, raising the specter of a replay of the fiasco that hit
Sony's music arm two years ago when researchers discovered that its copy
protection software used rootkit-like technologies.

According to F-Secure Corp., the fingerprint-reader software included with
the Sony MicroVault USM-F line of flash drives installs a driver that hides
in a hidden directory under "c:\windows". That directory, and the files
within it, are not visible through Windows' usual APIs (application
programming interface), said F-Secure researcher Mika Tolvanen in a posting
to the company's blog Monday.

"[But] if you know the name of the directory, it is possible to enter the
hidden directory using [the] Command Prompt and it is possible to create new
hidden files," said Tolvanen. "There are also ways to run files from this
directory."

All of this -- and the fact that the directory goes unspotted by some
antivirus scanners -- is similar to the Sony BMG rootkit case in late 2005.
Then, researchers spotted rootkit-like cloaking technologies used by the
copy-protection software Sony BMG Music Entertainment installed on PCs when
customers played the label's audio CDs. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
alleged that Sony had violated federal law by, and settled with the company
earlier this year. Before that, Sony paid out nearly US$6 million to settle
cases with . states.

"This isn't the same code, recycled," said Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief
research officer, in a telephone interview Monday. "Sony doesn't do any of
its own development in this area; it looks like a Chinese company did it.
But the similarities lie in the fact that, like the Sony BMG rootkit, this
software uses a hidden folder and hides files in it."

More important, he said, is another trait shared by both. "This can be used
to hide malware," Hypponen charged.

By mid-November 2005, less than two weeks after the first reports that the
Sony BMG copy protection software used rootkit-style technologies, Trojan
horses using the Sony code to hide from security software popped up in the
wild. Hypponen is convinced the same thing can happen here. "This will be
trivial to use," he said.

Both Hypponen and Tolvanen pointed out that the MicroVault software is
cloaking the folder for good reason: To protect the fingerprint reader's
authentication files from being tampered with, or circumvented. The issue,
said Hypponen, is that Sony's left the door ajar. "What's not justified is
that others can use this folder," he said. "If Sony was only hiding its own
files, no one would object."

F-Secure first notified Sony "about a month ago" that its rootkit-sniffing
software -- BlackLight -- had reported hidden files on a system with the
MicroVault software. "We never got a reply," said Hypponen.

Sony did not respond to a Computerworld request for comment Monday.


end quote

/article/id,136439-c,trojanhorses/


That's another fine mess arrogant Sony Corporation has got us in!

ClassWarz