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.

Comments

under the DMCA any antivirus software can get sued

[Joe_Dragon]

under the DMCA any antivirus software companies can get sued for remove or even marking this.

Not really surprising.

[Black LED]

It's reasons like this that I refuse to buy anything from Ubisoft.

Re:Not really surprising.

[afidel]

Yep, I own every HoMM game except VI due to the retarded DRM. I wish Steam had a filter button to remove anything with third party DRM so I wouldn't have to get my hopes up just to end up not buying a title due to publisher stupidity.

Re:Not really surprising.

[Polizei]

It's reasons like this I refuse to install any closed source binaries - besides the inbound and outbound firewall...

Re:Not really surprising.

[localman57]

happily playing Diablo 3 after I told them how much of a bitch the DRM is to the market place

That's the problem in a nutshell. If they're happy, either we aren't doing a good job making our point, or it really doesn't matter to them. Only one of two things will happen to make them change their minds. We have to make a case that they will be happier without DRM (in a way that is compelling enough that they will choose to be less happy in the short term to achieve it--By not playing Diablo, etc), or they have to get burned bad enough that the product itself makes them unhappy.

The problem, as I see it, is that most people just don't care, as long as it works. Most people aren't game historians, who worry about whether the authentication servers will still be there in 10 years. And for the small percentage of the people who actively fight against corporate interests, things like DRM take a backseat (and probably rightfully so) behind getting fucked by the banks, fucked by your health care provider, poisoned by local industries, etc.

If there is a technical issue that's on the public's front burner, it's Net Neutrality. And I'm ok with that. I can walk away from Ubisoft. But it's much harder to just say I'll do without the Internet.

Re:Not really surprising.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Not really surprising.

[gman003]

I've said this before: DRM, in and of itself, is not evil.

If all the DRM does is check whether I have or have not purchased the [whatever], and reliably detects paying users as such (low false-positive rate; the false-negative rate is meaningless to me), and the only thing it does is conditionally run (or not run) the [whatever], and it requires minimal work on my own part, I'm fine with it. And, it seems, many others are fine with it as well.

Now, many, even most, DRM implementations fail at least one of those evilness checks. This Ubisoft one violates the "don't do anything on the system not related to your product" clause. Many others fail the "reliably detect paying users as such" clause - always-online systems detect offline-but-paying users as nonpaying, for instance.

Steam passes the evilness checks with only a few caveats (it's not perfect, but it's one of the better ones, and probably the best with that level and quantity of games). You will have to go online at least once to authenticate, you need to prepare a bit ahead of time before going offline (random internet dropouts or the Steam servers themselves going down can stop you), and it does encrypt pre-loaded games. And then there's the whole "no reselling/used games" thing, but honestly, I'm fine with that. I've never found selling my old games to be financially worth it, and the very phrase "used digital games" is an absurdity.

Re:Not really surprising.

[xaoslaad]

Steam doesn't limit the number of installs I can perform. It doesn't require me to be always online. It doesn't stop me from running games under wine[1]. It doesn't restrict me to only one or a few downloads of my purchase. Steam may be DRM, but as things go it is pretty reasonable.

I have had games limit me to 10 installs. Games with cruddy DRM that can't possibly function under wine. Others let me only download them once. I have fortunately never had to deal with the always online crap, unless by its very nature it was necessary for the game (MMORPG's, for example).

[1] Yes, I actually game using wine, so that is of value to me. I only run Linux at home. It's a pain in the butt for gaming, but it's how I do it.

Re:Not really surprising.

[Baloroth]

You'd like Steam - a DRM system - to help you buy only DRMed games that don't use a competing DRM system?

People really have drunk the Steam kool-aid, haven't they?

Yes, because unlike every other DRM system I've ever seen, Steam actually helps to improve the experience, by making sure the game is up-to-date, storing saves and config files in the "cloud" (for developers who implement it), allowing me to re-download and re-install games on as many computers as I please, allowing me to easily play with friends (or not, as I see fit), and still allowing me to play games offline (unlike *ahem* Blizzard). And of course their famous sales. I know people who dislike Valve who still like Steam. Granted, the DRM isn't necessary for all that technically speaking, but it is to provide a decent selection (most developers wouldn't put their games on Steam if it didn't have copy-protection of some kind).

Honestly, Steam is almost always as easier, sometimes more, than pirating games.

Is anyone actually surprised?

[h4rr4r]

Who is actually surprised?

This is the one thing that has me worried about Steam on linux. Using it in wine I can be fairly sure I have it limited to one user account and no real ability to mess with the machine, but when it installs natively who knows.

Re:Is anyone actually surprised?

[NalosLayor]

"Cheating"...it's the "terrorism" of the gaming world.

Re:Is anyone actually surprised?

[bluefoxlucid]

Wine doesn't run as root though (I tried, it actually screams and exits immediately). Wine has a mapping to $HOME that you need to remove though...

Re:Is anyone actually surprised?

[causality]

So do you actually install it as a different user, or do you just feel warm and fuzzy that they can't modify your system, even though most of what you probably care about exists within your user account?

Even if you install it as a different user, you would need to log out of your main account every time (or, I suppose, run a secondary X server) as the rights required to display to your X server pretty much give full access to your account.

My own setup has a user account specifically dedicated to Wine. This user doesn't run anything else. That user has no network access at all because of iptables. There is a PAM module that gives this user access to draw on the X display when I switch to it (Gentoo does this by default; on most Debian-derived distros you have to configure PAM with a one-liner in /etc/pam.d/su -- add "session optional pam_xauth.so" to that text file).

I use a Gentoo Hardened system so I place extra restrictions on it. The Wine user cannot see processes of any other user and the permissions on anything outside of its home directory are quite restrictive. Back when I played WoW (and had to allow network access, but only just what it needed), it would scan the running processes as an anti-cheating measure; on this system it would see only itself and a couple of Wine processes. On a normal Linux system, any user can view every user's running processes. Also, Wine is compiled with SSP and has NX and other hardening features applied to it.

That's not an exhaustive list but it covers the main steps I took. You can probably gather that I don't trust binary Windows programs.

That's awesome

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I started boycotting several manufacturers over the games that required a constant online connection. I can't wait to tell my buddy that thinks that the boycott is stupid how his system is rooted (again)!

Re:That's awesome

[oneandoneis2]

As somebody who hasn't bought (or pirated) any games in about a decade (other than a few of the Wii Lego series) I have to say that the only downside of boycotting all modern games is that you have to find something to do with all the extra free time and money.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[MarioMax]

under the DMCA any antivirus software companies can get sued for remove or even marking this.

On the other hand, Ubisoft is probably guilty of violating Federal wiretap laws.

Re:Enough with giving Windows a pass

[h4rr4r]

This is software installed by the user on purpose, it is no flaw in windows that allowed it in. You could write software to do the same thing on any number of OSes.

I am no windows fan, but you can't blame them for this.

The post:

[Fwipp]

Because it's missing from the summary and also the linked article, here's the initial report: http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Jul/375

No wonder game sales are slumping...

[dryriver]

Game sales are seriously down in 2012 compared to previous years. I am willing to bet that at least partially, this is because of the Steam/Origin/UPlay DRM garbage game publishers force you to install. ------- The game industry needs to take a long, hard look at the way it treats paying customers. Instead of the "we force xyz conditions on you" mantra practiced today, the industry needs to switch to "the buyer is always right". This means that the industry will need to listen to what game buyers want, and no longer IMPOSE completely unnecessary and counterproductive terms & conditions on the paying gamer. -------- This will probably never happen... The industry is run by money-oriented suits & beancounters who don't really care about making good games. But it would definitely have been nice to see, even if for just one day, the industry actually listening to what its customers want. --------- Maybe Kickstarter.com can help fix this mess. The 24 game projects that have been funded with Kickstarter will all be delivered sometime in 2013. And then we will see if the "Crowdfunded Games" can serve as a replacement for buying games from the big Multi-Billion Dollar game publishers. ------

Re:No wonder game sales are slumping...

[dc29A]

Game sales are down for consoles maybe. With a bit of googling, you might find silly things like NVidia's 23% revenue growth attributed to PC gaming alone. And of course that Steam has 100% sales growth in 2012 over 2011. Oh and Diablo III selling like hotcakes. But hey, this profit growth is all because DRM is making people NOT buy games right?

Re:No wonder game sales are slumping...

[ilsaloving]

Because of Steam, I have actually bought MORE games than I ever had in my entire life up to that point. And that's, IMO, it actually gives me value:
a) amazing deals on games, allowing me to buy top titles for $15 as long as I'm patient enough to wait for the sale
b) saved games are backed up, so when I need to delete a game, I know that I can reinstall in the future and continue from where I left off
c) I can load the game onto an entirely *different* machine and continue from where I left off
d) My primary machine is a mac, but when I buy a game on steam I get the mac AND windows version. While I have not actually tried to yet, I *think* the save games are supposed to move between platforms as well. I could be wrong about that though.
e) Steam/Valve has done a LOT to improve the gaming scene on Mac, and now they are trying to do the same for Linux.

The only real downside is that I can't sell my games second-hand to someone else. But considering that I've never really done that anyway, it's a moot point.

So yeah, Steam may have the properties of a DRM system, but I am willing to live with it because I consider the benefits to dramatically outweigh the negatives.

Meanwhile Blizzard and Ubisoft provide nothing of the sort, and can go DIAF for all I care.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't always waive your rights, even if you agree to it.

Not a rootkit, but...

[Kdansky]

Technically, rootkit is the wrong term. It doesn't insert itself into the system, and it cannot execute code with privileges. It's still a security hole big enough to swallow small countries.

Re:Not a rootkit, but...

[canajin56]

Rootkits are about avoiding detection while granting somebody else the ability to execute arbitrary code remotely. Although it's a deviation from the origin of the name, there's no requirement that a rootkit have root access. Ring 3 rootkits are still considered rootkits, and that includes this one, which is essentially a DLL injection into the browser, if one that's not hidden from the user, just made to seem harmless. That is, if you see that there is a uPlay plugin after you install uPlay, you might assume that's to interface between their store and their DRM, rather than having a built-in browser like Steam has. You probably wouldn't think it's there to execute arbitrary code from any website that wants to. When they talk about "privileged access" to your system, they mean the philosophical "privileged access", which is access that nobody else has. Executing arbitrary code is privileged access, because only the local user is supposed to be able to do that. It doesn't mean "root access". At any rate, I don't think privilege escalation is tricky on Windows.

Re:All DRM is rootkit

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO ANY software that allows someone to delete/alter/lock up something on my machine without my permission is essentially a rootkit.

DRM does not allow someone to "delete/alter" anything. It only "locks up" in the crypto sense, as DRM is basically crypto code. I dislike DRM, but will defend a software company's right to encrypt their software, and even allow them to require an Internet connection to "unlock/decrypt" that software so that it can be used. This is their choice, and in that respect, "buyer beware". Vote with your cash.

OTOH, installing a rootkit which allows possible unauthorised access to my machine, by the company or any other 3rd party without specific permission for each and every access??? They deserve to be fined out of existence by every legal system on the planet.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

In what way?
You really think they did not include some fine print in the EULA about how the user was consenting to this?

An illegal action (not sure if this is or not) remains illegal, even if both parties agree to it.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[poetmatt]

What, have you never heard of the sony rootkit? they were pretty damn close to getting sued for similar issues.

Fine print won't do anything to get around this. Just like every fine print says you indemnify the company - if there's a real issue, the judges will ignore the EULAs which have been deemed legally unenforceable anyway.

And they wonder...

[mycroft16]

And they wonder why there is piracy of video games. Seems quite obvious to me. "Buy game and get a rootkit installed on my machine, compromising my system's security or get the game from pirates without that."

Re:All DRM is rootkit

[Dog-Cow]

A rootkit is software that allows root access without (further) exploiting the OS/software on the machine. The software itself may do nothing at all beyond that, and it's still a rootkit.

Conversely, software which reformats your harddrive is not a rootkit if it doesn't grant root access. Even if it itself is running as root!

So, your definition is crap. You've basically made up your own just so you can hate on DRM. It's stupid because DRM is crap even without this misguided rationalization.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[History's Coming To]

Correct, in the UK at least, not sure about US law. For example, even if I agreed to work for less than minimum wage the employer is still breaking the law if they don't pay minimum wage, you can't sign away your legal rights. Also, they could be leaving themselves open to even bigger trouble - it could be argued that by doing this Ubisoft have taken responsibility for anything placed on the computer as a result and could be held legally responsible for anything found on it, such as malware or child porn.

The evil JS:

[nthitz]

var x = document.createElement('OBJECT');
x.setAttribute("type", "application/x-uplaypc");
document.body.appendChild(x);
x.open("-orbit_product_id 1 -orbit_exe_path QzpcV0lORE9XU1xTWVNURU0zMlxDQUxDLkVYRQ== -uplay_steam_mode -uplay_dev_mode -uplay_dev_mode_auto_play")

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Ubisoft is a corporation, its not like anything bad is actually going to happen to them.

Re:you know what... I blame myself...

[Nadaka]

And the price you pay for buying d3 is an endless pointless grind to gather loot, to sell to the vendor for a paltry few of the billion gold that you would need in order to have the gear strong enough to farm for actual items. Or you can go on the real money auction house and give blizzard an extra 15% of filthy lucre from the $500 to $2500 it will cost you to gear up for inferno act4.

Re:Enough with giving Windows a pass

[SharpFang]

Wait, not really.

You install a computer game
The game claims to install counterfeiting and cheat protection
What you also get in the bundle without consenting is a backdoor/rootkit

This is the very definition of a trojan.

uPlay just updated

[derfy]

uPlay update 2.0.4: 'Fix addressing browser plugin. Plugin now only able to open uPlay application.'

Well, that was fast.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[Dunbal]

You mean the EULA you are forced to agree to AFTER making the purchase? Null and void.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[jones_supa]

Exactly. When a individual screws up, he loses his summer cabin, children, dog and job. But when a company does so, everything continues pretty much the same...it shouldn't be like that. Companies should be tools for us, not the other way around.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[MrHanky]

Which is incorrect. There was a class action suit, which Sony in the end settled.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[wvmarle]

In most if not all jurisdictions in this world, the law is always above any contract or agreement. And rightfully so, just think of the mess we would have if that is not the case. It's also why in all proper contracts you will find a "survivability clause", stating that if anything in the contract is overruled by another law, that the rest of the contract remains in force.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[NormalVisual]

Not only does it continue the same, but the company usually looks at whatever fine they received as an additional cost of doing business, and then just passes it along to the customer. Therefore, the *customer* is who actually pays for the company's transgressions.

Re:All DRM is rootkit

[cheekyjohnson]

I dislike DRM, but will defend a software company's right to encrypt their software, and even allow them to require an Internet connection to "unlock/decrypt" that software so that it can be used.

I would too. But I would also defend the right of people to modify their copy of the software to remove said DRM and even distribute cracks for it.

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[mcgrew]

Actually they were sued by several state's attorneys, and settled. Personally, as a victim of XCP (I didn't agree to their god damned eula, my daughter installed it, never imagining that a big respected company would deliberately install MALWARE) I'd like to meet Sony's President in Felbers' beer garden and beat him to death with a two by four. I'm still pissed, and it's almost been ten years. I will never EVER be stupid enough to buy another Sony product. I want the company broken up and its board of directors impoverished. Nothing's too bad for those evil sociopaths. Cancer and AIDS are too good for 'em.

A rootkit is MALWARE. The president of Sony should have gone to prison, and the President of Ubisoft should, too. If I did to Sony what Sony did to me, you can bet your ass I'd go to prison. But it's OK for the 1% to fuck over the 99% any way they want, but if you mess with them, well, you're screwed.

And you stupid people should quit buying their damned games! Jesus, stop letting these assholes take advantage of you! You would buy from a company that deliberately installs malware on their customers' computers??? How goddamned stupid can you get????

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[Hatta]

Which is a perfect example of how the rich and powerful live by a different set of laws. If I put a root kit on Sony's computer, you'd better believe I'd have felony charges filed against me. If Sony puts a root kit on my computer, all they have to do is pay off some state AGs.

Maybe they'll actually get sued this time...

[Anachragnome]

Maybe they'll actually get sued this time...

I play Everquest 2 on this machine, and look what I just found (installed yesterday). Firefox never informed me that it was being installed.

FF - HKLM\Software\MozillaPlugins\@soe.sony.com/installer,version=1.0.3: C:\Documents and Settings\owner\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\5kpvldeq.default\extensions\{000F1EA4-5E08-4564-A29B-29076F63A37A}\plugins\npsoe.dll ()

In the Firefox browser Add-on pane it is listed as SOE Web Installer 1.0.3.171. It can be disabled, but I have not attempted to remove it yet. I want to keep it around while I figure out what it is doing. A web-search is inconclusive as it appears to have just been released, although I did find several links to a "test page" that belongs to Sony that instantly tries to install said plug-in. No-script blocked these attempts, so I have to assume it was served to me via the EQ2 GAME updating system. If so, complete bullshit.

Again, I never got any sort of plug-in install warning when running Firefox, and I have my browser warning settings at maximum verbosity. This plug-in was just "there".

Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s

[rtb61]

You have to be careful about what you consider to be waiving your rights ie. I wave my rights, sorry changed my mind, waived them again, changed my mind again, waived, not waived, waived, mine again.

Waiving your rights means pretty much nothing because the very second you claim them back, they return with full force of the law, constitutional and criminal law both of which out weigh contract law. There is no legal condition of contract that can prevent you from reclaiming your rights, at any time you choose.