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Crackers Tune In to Windows Media Player
jamshedji writes "Crackers are using the newest DRM technology in Microsoft's Windows Media Player to install spyware, adware, dialers and computer viruses on unsuspecting PC users."
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"It's pretty ingenious," said Patrick Hinojasa, chief technical officer at Panda Software. "To take an anti-piracy feature and use it to feed spyware is extremely ironic."
Not quite ingenious but certainly not ironic. Perhaps if they were loading copyrighted materials such as movies and music onto your machine while you were attempting to download the license for DRM *then* it would be ironic.
The sad thing is that 99% of Windows users are likely telling WMP to install these licenses automatically when they try to play a media file. It's the "popup addiction" at work. People can't stand popups and anything to get them out of the way for good is they way they want to go.
This is going to become yet another excuse for trusted computing and single codec repositories. "Look! You are being infected by those bad sites on the Internet! Want protection? Use trusted computing and you'll never have a problem again! Just sign here, here and here. Pay here and connect here. Ahh, isn't that better?"
this time.. we probably wont have the ability to turn it off.
This will become the new ActiveX.. I can see it already..
Simon.
One has to wonder why an application whose primary purpose it is to just display data is such a huge vector for infection. What was Microsoft thinking when they made it possible for movies to automatically open URL's and install stuff? Perhaps someone can explain the logic to me.
Be relentless!
For those who still don't suspect, you might try Firefox.
What does Firefox have to do with ending Spyware via WMP? Absolutely nothing. Last time I checked Firefox opened WMP on Windows machines when you attempted to play a media file.
Hmm.
Now maybe if you had suggested some little known media player that didn't automatically install codecs after you clicked "don't ask me again, just install" then maybe your post would have been worth something.
At least RTFA.
Is it really worth sacrificing the safety of media files so that video players could launch web pages and other code? Another example of Microsoft trying to add usability, whlile sacrificing security. There's no way they couldn't have known about this security flaw.
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
Because as /.ers we know the difference, and these are most certainly crackers, not hackers.
They aren't using Windows Media Player to install spyware. They are using WMP to get users to click on a link that takes them to a webpage where, presumably, the user's browser is compromised.
Give the proliferation of spyware *without* this new fishing technique, I don't understand the significance of this. People find spyware all by themselves, they don't need any help.
...a media player? It's a flaw in Windows Media Player, not (unusual as it is) Internet Explorer.
:)
So, in other words - use VideoLAN
I like the variant term Richard Stallman likes to promote: Digital Restrictions Management.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
I agree with your trusted computing satement, if Microsoft does acknowlege this incident there will only be more problems. Microsoft has been doing this kind of thing for years, so I dont expect their announcements to suddenly be more honest. I'd be even more surprised if the mass media found the real story instead of propogating microsoft garbage speak. Microsoft has been loosing credibility for several years now, in the future I look for "non-trusted computing" to be EASIER, and more trusted. When consumers see a open market that meets these requirements (and it's already impressive), they'll seriously consider a new platform.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Thing is, this is one of those cases that hits Windows more because of the monoculture than directly due to the inherent security flaws or the DRM problem.
In general "advanced" formats will require downloading software. The fact that the "advance" here is DRM is almost immaterial, except perhaps for the fact that some people believe they're downloading a license rather than software. But Windows asks explicitly if you want to download and install the software. You get a warning, you have to say, "Yeah, I want that piece of malware." The message may not be clear enough, and since there are cases where you do want it you're asking a naive user to make a fairly sophisticated security judgment, but it is there, and the malware can't bypass it. It doesn't need to.
To my knowledge Linux doesn't have a good solution to that problem, either. If you need software to play that movie/music, it's up to you to verify that the software isn't malware. Linux users escape this problem largely because there aren't enough of them to make it worth the malware writer's effort (as well as the fact that Linux users tend to be better educated and would answer "Hell no!" to the question if asked).
What's needed here is a security sandbox. Download the codec but don't give it permission to do anything except take stuff from one place in memory and dump it to another, or access a limited direct-to-video API. No network access, no disk access. I'm not aware of any particular Linux security sandbox.
Microsoft does have its own, in its C#/CLR, though clearly that hasn't made it to the point of writing codecs yet. And it may not, since these are performance-intensive apps and virtual machines impose overhead. I've seen codecs written in Java, and they're tolerable but not what you'd choose.
Trusted computing will make current spyware and worm problems a lot worse.
As soon as a bug is found in a trusted computing architecture, which WILL happen, things will get a whole lot worse for the average user. Spyware will be created which your hardware refuses to allow you to remove, even with a boot disk or safe mode. Your computer will refuse allow you to install anti-virus and spyware cleaning tools. The spyware will install a certificate with high trust levels for spyware vendors.
Even if no bug is found, companies like AOL have proven they're willing to sell out their customers by bundling adware with AIM without disclosure. This will likely create an initial hole which can be opened up much wider.
Issues like this are killing Windows. I learned my lesson a few years ago that almost no shareware or freeware can be trusted. This makes Windows a lot less useful and is one of the many reasons why I usually run linux on my desktop.
IMHO, trusted computing will only hurt Windows' usability by the average user.
If you have to run Microsoft, one solution is to back off to Windows 2000. You run Windows 2000. Windows XP runs you. Many corporate installations refuse to go with XP for that reason.
It's not just Microsoft, either. Remember that DRM-protected CD that changed the firmware on Apple CD drives so the machine would never work again? (And remember Apple refusing to fix it under warranty?)