Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Revisiting the Infamous Sony BMG Rootkit Scandal 10 Years Later (networkworld.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the same-as-it-ever-was dept.

alphadogg writes: Hackers really have had their way with Sony over the past year, taking down its Playstation Network last Christmas Day and creating an international incident by exposing confidential data from Sony Pictures Entertainment in response to The Interview. Some say all this is karmic payback for what's become known as a seminal moment in malware history: Sony BMG sneaking rootkits into music CDs 10 years ago in the name of digital rights management. 'In a sense, it was the first thing Sony did that made hackers love to hate them,' says Bruce Schneier, CTO for Resilient Systems. Sony's scheme was revealed on Halloween of 2005, and was followed by a botched response, issuing and reissuing of rootkit removal tools, and lawsuits. There are object lessons from the incident which are relevant today.

3 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Yup paving the way by silas_moeckel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To show that the government is unwilling to play fairly. The Rootkit should have gotten executives jailed and massive fines. Instead it was a fairly minor lawsuit and move on with business.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  2. Too easy to exploit by Xian97 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Any file that started with $sys$ was hidden from the OS, so it didn't take long for people to start hiding malicious files if you had the rootkit on your system.

  3. I used to work for SONY,, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sony, Has a bunch of briliant people working away in the engineering sections of the company,,
    but once you peirce the management wall, things change..
    People de-volve into their "HIGH SCHOOL" distilates..

    It's like going back to highshcool with all the social cliqiues, and whos cool, bla bla, but the big difference is they all have money and can action on most if not everything that comes to mind, negative or not..

    to make matters worse, my superior was a very racially charged individual with a focus on Jews and Homosexuals. It was a shame the crap that used to fall out of his mouth.. It got so bad tward the end, they moved his office next to HR, due to the sheer ammounts of complaints being filed.. They finally got rid of him once they found another individual to take his place with a 10% cut in pay for the equivalent work..
    I am by no means perfect, but I conduct my self in a professional and business manner every day when interacting with my fellows at the work place..
    It seems Sony has not discovered that part of the world yet..
    As far as I am concerned, Sony got what they Got, and deserved it.. Although based on the series of events that has unfolded since this incident, its a shame that Sony is unwilling or unable to learn from its past mistakes.. And now various people have cropped up to challenge them on it, as you can see in the press releases over the years chronicling Sony's blunderfucks year after year..
    thank you for your time.