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Ubisoft Uplay DRM Found To Include a Rootkit
An anonymous reader writes "It has been discovered that the Uplay system Ubisoft uses to both check a game is legal and offer up gaming achievements, multiplayer, and additional content, actually contains a rootkit. The discovery was made by Tavis Ormandy, an information security engineer at Google, when he installed Assassin's Creed: Revelations on his laptop. He noticed that during the installation Uplay installed a browser plug-in that allows any website to gain access to your machine through a backdoor and take control of it.The plug-in can be classed as a rootkit because it is thought to allow continued privileged access to a machine without a user's consent."
Update: Ubisoft has released a statement saying it has issued a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application.
Update: Ubisoft has released a statement saying it has issued a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application.
It's reasons like this I refuse to install any closed source binaries - besides the inbound and outbound firewall...
Can we stop calling them "Computer" games when what we really mean is Windows game? Linux constantly gets a pass in the popular press using generic terms when the entertainment is very specific to the Windows platform. Yes, other OSs get games but it is a drop in the bucket to the ocean of what is seen on Windows and it is disingenuous to mislead laypeople otherwise.
And don't worry, if Ubisoft ever makes a game available on linux, this is what you'd see:
[sudo] password for AC:
What?
You use a closed source firewall and are worried about what games are doing?
That seems pretty odd.
"Will it find your porn?"
I dunno, a DRM scheme that found all my porn and automatically downloaded similar high def porn clips would be pretty useful. Would save me a lot of time on YouPorn.
The problem is that if you try to boycott every game publisher or developer that does stupid things like this, you'll shortly end up boycotting almost every company.
Never mind, there's always Tux Racer.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Don't you watch South Park?
I hope you don't have any Apple products or software on your system...
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