[Infowarrior] - New Sony Rootkit found on USB drives

[Richard Forno]

Deja vu: Sony uses rootkits, charges F-Secure
The Finnish security company has found that Sony Microvault USM-F flash
drives install files in a hidden folder that hackers can access

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By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld, IDG News Service

August 27, 2007

A line of USB drives sold by Sony installs files in a hidden folder that can
be accessed and used by hackers, a Finnish security company charged Monday,
raising the specter of a replay of the fiasco that hit Sony's music arm two
years ago when researchers discovered that its copy protection software used
rootkit-like technologies.

According to F-Secure, the fingerprint-reader software included with the
Sony MicroVault USM-F line of flash drives installs a driver that hides in a
hidden directory under "c:\windows". That directory and the files within it
are not visible through Windows' usual APIs, said F-Secure researcher Mika
Tolvanen in a posting to the company's blog Monday.

"[But] if you know the name of the directory, it is possible to enter the
hidden directory using [the] Command Prompt, and it is possible to create
new hidden files," said Tolvanen. "There are also ways to run files from
this directory."

All of this -- and the fact that the directory goes unspotted by some
antivirus scanners -- is similar to the Sony BMG rootkit case in late 2005.
Then, researchers spotted rootkit-like cloaking technologies used by the
copy-protection software Sony BMG Music Entertainment installed on PCs when
customers played the label's audio CDs. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
alleged that Sony had violated federal law and settled with the company
earlier this year. Before that, Sony paid out nearly $6 million to settle
cases with U.S. states.

"This isn't the same code, recycled," said Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure's chief
research officer, in an interview Monday. "Sony doesn't do any of its own
development in this area; it looks like a Chinese company did it. But the
similarities lie in the fact that like the Sony BMG rootkit, this software
uses a hidden folder and hides files in it."

More important, he said, is another trait shared by both. "This can be used
to hide malware," Hypponen charged.

By mid-November 2005, less than two weeks after the first reports that the
Sony BMG copy protection software used rootkit-style technologies, Trojan
horses using the Sony code to hide from security software popped up in the
wild. Hypponen is convinced the same thing can happen here. "This will be
trivial to use," he said.

Both Hypponen and Tolvanen pointed out that the MicroVault software is
cloaking the folder for good reason: To protect the fingerprint reader's
authentication files from being tampered with or circumvented. The issue,
said Hypponen, is that Sony's left the door ajar. "What's not justified is
that others can use this folder," he said. "If Sony was only hiding its own
files, no one would object."

F-Secure first notified Sony "about a month ago" that its rootkit-sniffing
software, BlackLight, had reported hidden files on a system with the
MicroVault software. "We never got a reply," said Hypponen.

Sony did not respond to a Computerworld request for comment Monday.