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Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit
BokLM writes "Wired has an interesting article from Bruce Schneier about what's happening with the Sony Rootkit, and criticizing the anti-virus companies for not protecting its users. From the article: 'Much worse than not detecting it before Russinovich's discovery was the deafening silence that followed. When a new piece of malware is found, security companies fall over themselves to clean our computers and inoculate our networks. Not in this case.'"
Imagine this: a brick comes sailing through your window, smashing glass everywhere. You pick it up and wrapped around the brick is a flyer for a glass replacement company.
This is how I've viewed the major AV companies for quite some time. Sure, there are non-affiliated virus threats out there, but they perpetuate their own business as well.
I didn't think that my opinion of McAffee and Norton could sink any lower... but I was wrong.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
3-Pages of Wired goodness
Reminds me of the good old days when computer viruses were spread around on 3 1/2 floppy disks. Nothing like a boot sector virus to spoil your day.
Links From The Article
Apparently there is a criminal investigation going on...
In Italy
Class action lawsuit
Apparently step 3 is that you have to "reside in either California or New York." Sadly, step 4 is not Profit!
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's interesting how some of the vendors are listing information about the rootkit, but see uninterested in adding a signature, claiming that it's not really a virus (which is true) because it doesn't self-replicate. That's fine, I guess, because if they started detecting rootkits, they'd have a lot more work to do, but I think it's kind of shortsighted of them to think that people won't get angry that they paid for a $40/year subscription for a product that doesn't detect when their system gets totally rooted.
(I'm always tempted to spell it r00tk1t, but I'm trying to act more mature these days...)
Free music from Jack Merlot.
one word:
Bhopal
.
music lover since 1969
Mod parent up.
He is referring to the bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_gas_tragedy/ where thousands of people were killed and Union Carbide pretty much got away with it. The CEO Warren Anderson is a fugitive and is on the wanted list of CBI India.
The SOny rootkit was *not* a virus, so expecting AV software to do something about it isn't appropriate. The rootkit was spyware that came along with something the user installed by choice, no different from weatherbug or any of that other silly BS. That makes it a bit touchy deciding to remove it, just like removing some other BS that a user is sure they need. Most of these companies moved to remove the cloaking aspect as soon as it was known, closing the security hole, but (legally) removing the underlying software would remove the ability to play the Sony CD. You don't just go around uninstalling programs that users think they need (no matter how silly).
I suspect that for 99% of non-geek users, the ability to play the Sony CD was much more important than removing "some rootkit, whatever that is". And you probably can't remove the software and leave the ability to play the CD without violating the DMCA, so what are you going to do?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Correct URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_gas_tragedy (no trailing slash).
-- Argel