JaBbA's Hut

Sony's new DRM CD technology, designed to limit the number of times you can burn a CD, accomplished this by installing a rootkit on your computer. A rootkit is used to change the behavior of core system processes to, for example, hide files from view. In this case, it hides the files that control how often the CD can be burned.

"Rootkits are always malicious," said Richard Stiennon, director of threat research for the Boulder, Colo.-based anti-spyware vendor Webroot. "There's no legitimate use of a rootkit, whose only purpose is to hide code from the operating system." Stiennon is intimately familiar with rootkits, since they're often by spyware writers to disguise some of their nastier work, like password keyloggers.

UPDATE The complete description of how it was found is here. The EULA included on the CD has NO MENTION of the installation of the rootkit. This is easy grounds for a class action lawsuit.

UPDATE 2 And now, World of Warcraft hackers are using the rootkit to defeat the WOW anti-cheating code - itself controversial