Rootkit woes for Sony again?
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Blog: Security researcher points to rootkit found in fingerprint authentication software in Sony's Micro Vault USB drive.
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Cheap model to ditch USB, PS2 compatibility, it's said Sony has poo-poo'd claims that it's about to announce a cut-price PS3 for the UK.â¦
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We've feared it for a long time, and now the situation has come to pass: The malware's moving faster than the tools to thwart it. But since you can't simply hide under a non-wired rock and hope it goes away, it's worth knowing how AV manufacturers are battling back -- and how you can too.
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A tool has been posted online that can apparently crack Vista's activation process by applying brute force -- and lots of time -- to come up with valid product keys. But the author is now telling users it's wrong to use it.
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The tricky business of thwarting online fraud Logistic and technical issues have hampered the rollout of a system designed to thwart phishing scams by UK bank Barclays.â¦
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An unusually high number of reports of intermittent playback freezes during Blu-ray movies and some games have been posted to Sony's PlayStation 3 forum, as well as to the AVS Forum and other sources, after PS3 owners upgraded to version 1.5 of the system firmware.
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(InfoWorld) - Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million in penalties to settle lawsuits with two U.S. states over its controversial use of copy protection software. The settlements with the California and Texas attorneys general were announced Tuesday, seven months after theÂ music giant settled a class-action lawsuit in the matter. Sony's trouble began in late 2005, when a computer science researcher disclosed that Sony's had beenÂ shipping CDs with a copy protection program that used dangerous "rootkit" techniquesÂ to cloak itself after installation. Sony licensed this software from First 4 Internet Ltd., based in Banbury, U.K., but problems were also found with a second copy protection program used by Sony. That software, called Media Max, was developed by SunnComm International Inc. of Phoenix. Until Tuesday, Texas had been the only state with an outstanding lawsuit related to the rootkit fiasco, but other state's attorneys general and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had also been looking into the matter, according to Jeff McGrath, deputy district attorney, with Los Angeles County, which participated in the California lawsuit. Sony has now reached tentative settlements with more than a dozen other states, including Massachusetts and Nebraska, as well as the FTC, McGrath said. The FTC declined to comment on the matter. The California lawsuit was both filed and settled on Tuesday. Sony's rootkit software shipped on an estimated 15 million CDs, bundled with music from artists such as Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion and Earl Scruggs. Consumers were offered refunds as part of the May class-action agreement, but Tuesday's settlements take additional steps by compensating them for damages caused by the rootkit code and "ensuring that this type of thing will not happen again," McGrath said. California and Texas consumers who believe that their computers were damaged by Sony's software can receive up to $175 to cover repair costs. The agreements also force Sony to submit any software it ships with music CDs to third-party audits for the next five years. Sony has created a Web site to address its rootkit settlement. That site is eventually expected to include instructions for consumers seeking refunds for their PC repairs. These refunds will, for example, compensate users who had their CD drives trashed when AOL's antispyware software tried to remove the First 4 files, said Paco Felici, a spokesman with the Texas Attorney General's office. Since the rootkit fiasco, Sony has stopped shipping digital rights management software with its music CDs. However, if it does add this capability to future CDs, it must make this clear to customers. "They're requiring disclosures to consumers before sale on the CD packaging," said Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "I think that's really crucial. Part of the whole background of the rootkit fiasco was that consumers just didn't know what they were getting into." A Sony spokesman declined to comment on investigations by the FTC and other states. "We are pleased to have reached agreements with the offices of the California and Texas Attorneys General," he said, reading from a statement.
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McAfee joined ranks of those criticizing Sony over rootkit-like behavior of device driver used to run its Micro Vault USB.
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New version turns off security, attempts to download malicious programs from Net--but it's not likely to get far.
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Skype warns users password-stealing Trojan horse is making the rounds, disguised as a Skype security plug-in
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Slight disagreement to the tune of $412,000 The public feud over the effectiveness of a proof-of-concept rootkit said to be completely undetectable continued on Thursday, as a researcher once again challenged those claims.â¦
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Tycho:  You can download homebrewed ROMs for the Fruit Fucker that enhance the efficiency of the feed reamer or allow you to juice via SMS.  I'd read on FFHacks.com tweaking boards that the machine had an array of sensors that had no apparent juicing purpose.  Of course, "hackzors" up to their spectacles in system-level code are probably the last people to read the manual.
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thejoelpatrol writes &quot;So did Slashdotters call this one? Windows XP SP2 seems not to be so secure after all. A Register reporter goes in depth to find out just how safe a fresh install is.
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Tycho:  Gamespot is saying there's a reproducible crash in the new Tiger Woods for the 360, and that the Gamernet functionality doesn't work there either.  PS3 version sounds clean.    Next year, can you guys make sure you put your crash bugs into the demo, too?  It would really help the consumer make an educated decision.    It's so weird; we had problems with the last one, but it never occurred to us that the next one could be worse.  That is to say, I expect inertia.  I don't expect it to break before I even get the Goddamned thing home.      (CW)TB
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Tycho:  I don't know whose fault it is exactly, mine or theirs, but I won't be installing Vista anytime soon.  I would like some crazy shit to happen when I minimize something don't get me wrong.  I want my windows to go Waja-wajow(!) is possible.  But if there's a great reason to "trade horses midstream" or whatever the going metaphor is I haven't discovered it.
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Ryan Malesevich is taking a break from his look at some handy WordPress packages to share a small series on how to move from using MD5 hashes out to SHA-1 hashes for passwords in a MySQL database. He's posted part one today.   What if you're using MD5 in your web application and want to switch over to another encryption method. It's actually not that hard and I plan to cover them in this multi-part tutorial (I know I planned on writing this months ago, but it's better late then never). In this first part I plan on going over updating the database structure and a 'pseudo-code' of what will need to be done.   As mentioned, he gives the outline (pseudo-code) of how the process will work - basically, creating an SHA1 hash of the MD5 and the username in a "newpassword" column added to your database.
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With viruses, worms, spyware, spam and phishing, running a computer this year -- especially one with Windows -- has often been a colossal headache. -Rob Pegoraro