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Badder than a very bad thing

November 15, 2005 By: bio Category: Geeky Stuff, General

Again with the Sony/BMG blues.

If you were unlucky enough to stick one of their XCP protected disks into your windows PC… do not, and I mean DO NOT make a second mistake and run the uninstaller to remove the rootkit it installs.

It’s now been discovered that the patch released by Sony to “uninstall” the copy protection software can open up a whole new can of worms on your PC.

“Alex Halderman and I have confirmed that Sony’s Web-based XCP uninstallation utility exposes users to serious security risk. Under at least some circumstances, running Sony’s Web-based uninstaller opens a huge security hole on your computer. We have a working demonstration exploit. … In the meantime, we recommend strongly against downloading or running Sony’s Web-based XCP uninstaller.”

In a nutshell… it allows any website to install and execute software on your PC via a webpage. This is beyond bad.

Another way to explain it: running this application to remove something bad will make things far worse. It will unleash the hounds and let slip the gates of hell.

Sony… if you’re looking for a Senior Applications Engineer who can tell you when you’re doing something insanely stupid… you should hire me (though I’m not sure I’d accept… I’m kinda funny about things like company stability and job security).

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