The best way to get rid of the Sony DRM rootkit
The SecurityFix has a great how to article for the general public on the best way to remove the Sony DRM rootkit that’s been big news the last two weeks in tech circles. First, DON’T use Sony’s removal software as that introduces more security problems. Hopefully Sony will get together a removal for THAT eventually. Right now though, Microsoft has updated it’s malicious software removal tool to remove the Sony rootkit. This link is to Windows Live Safety Center, which will give a page with, among other things, a button that says “Full Service Scan” in the lower right hand corner.
If you’ve never visited the site before, you will need to install Microsoft’s Live Safety Scanner, you will be prompted to do that and to agree to the license agreement (click next). Afterwards you should be able to choose “Quick Scan” and click next.
Sony now has a list of XCP titles, or those cds that include their XCP software that is at the middle of this rootkit problem.
Unfortunately if you’ve followed Sony’s removal instructions and have the ActiveX component on your system the removal is a bit less user-friendly…
From freedom-to-tinker.com has a way to remove it….
To see whether CodeSupport is on your computer, try our CodeSupport detector page.
If you’re vulnerable, you can protect yourself by deleting the CodeSupport component from your machine. From the Start menu, choose Run. In the box that pops up, type (on a single line)
cmd /k del “%windir%\downloaded program files\codesupport.*”
That should remove the control from your local machine. The freedom to tinker link above has more info on the ActiveX control and a page up that checks to see if you’re at risk from THAT vulnerability..
–Update 11/17/05 —
Freedom-to-tinker has an article on a downloadable fix to disable the ActiveX control that is from CodeSupport. If I understand correctly it’s a registry file that will set the kill bit for that control. The link to the fix and details can be found at the page above. They suggest any and all users to apply this fix to prevent the installation of the Activex, or disable it if already installed.
For the “Backstory” on this… look for posts here on the Sony DRM rootkit story