Sony to patch copy-protected CD

News.com reports that Sony BMG Music Entertainment will provide a patch for the software that could be installed on computers when a Music Cd is put into a cd or dvd drive. The software as is could be used by virus writers to hide software from antivirus software when the program from the music cd was installed on the home computer.

First 4 Internet, the technology partner already provided a patch to antivirus companies that will eliminate the copy-protection software’s ability to hide. Sony and BMG will also publish patches on the companies website allowing visitors to download the patches from there as well.

Update: The incident was first discovered by Sysinternals’ Mark Russinovich who analyzed the copy restrictions that Sony deployed on some of their CDs. He discovered that standard tools to remove the protection from the system would render Windows PCs unable to play music CDs.

Sony since then has admitted that the company used the technology on about 20 albums including discs from Vivian Green and The Bad Plus. The company noted further that the technology had been on the market for about eight months before it was discovered by the security expert.

The first version of the patch did not remote the date from affected Windows PCs, it merely made the data visible to all programs on the system. A second patch was issued soon thereafter that removed the rootkit component of XCP from Windows systems.

The patch is no longer available on the official Sony website or other websites. It is however unlikely that many users are still experiencing issues with the rootkit, considering that they would have to insert one of the original CDs into their computer’s drive with autorun enabled.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday November 2, 2005 -
Tags:copy-protection, sony, Spyware