I’m sure you’ve all heard about Sony’s rootkit CD protection scheme that silently loaded itself onto every PC on which one of its CDs was played and how it recently backfired quite literally. It’s been all over the news, and is, I might add, another reason you shouldn’t be using a Windows based PC. However, this rant isn’t about Windows. It’s about your anti-virus software. In Wired magazine (http://tinyurl.com/ag6oy), Bruce Schneier says that the real story behind Sony’s rootkit problem is the lack of response from major security firms like Symantec and McAffee.
Bruce says “The story to pay attention to here is the collusion between big media companies who try to control what we do on our computers and computer-security companies who are supposed to be protecting us…. What do you think of your anti-virus company, the one that didn’t notice Sony’s rootkit as it infected half a million computers? …. Because it spread through infected CDs, not through internet connections, they didn’t notice? This is exactly the kind of thing we’re paying those companies to detect — especially because the rootkit was phoning home.”