Sony BMG: Don't install that patch!

Dec 8th, 2005

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Just one day after jointly announcing a patch to correct a security flaw in the SunnComm MediaMax copy protection included on 27 CDs, Sony BMG and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are urging users not to install it. The update includes a vulnerability similar to the one it attempted to fix.

SunnComm's MediaMax version 5 software does not properly protect a directory it installs, opening the door for a privilege escalation attack. Thus, a restricted user account could replace the executables within the MediaMax directory with malicious code, which would then be executed by an administrator upon inserting a CD.

Sony said it would notify customers of the SunnComm problem through an advertising banner within the MediaMax software, and via an online ad campaign. It also began distributing an update on the Sony BMG Web site and to security vendors.

But despite claims that "independent software security firm NGS Software have determined that the security vulnerability is fully addressed by the update," Princeton researcher Alex Halderman has found otherwise.

"It turns out that there is a way an adversary can booby-trap the MediaMax files so that hostile software is run automatically when you install and run the MediaMax patch," Princeton professor Edward Felten explained. "The previously released MediaMax uninstaller is also insecure in the same way."

Halderman and Felten also discovered that even if a user declines the MediaMax license agreement, the vulnerable software is still installed on their computer. However, those users will not see the advertising banner Sony is using to notify customers.

"The consequences of this problem are just as bad as those of the XCP rootkit whose discovery by Mark Russinovich started SonyBMG's woes," added Felten. "This problem, like the rootkit, allows any program on the system to launch a serious security attack that would normally be available only to fully trusted programs."

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http://www.betanews.com/article/Oops...ure/1134060047
BetaNews | Oops -- New Sony DRM Patch Insecure

Already here :)
I added it to your other thread here

including rootkit detect / remove tool too :p

Hi foxyloxley,

OPPS! Missed your post...

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You must spread your AntiPoints around before giving it to foxyloxley again.

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Eg :D

Just in case everyone wants another slant on it... I offer the Registers POV on the topic - they're so cheeky!

Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12...amax_problems/

Story:

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SonyBMG backtracks on buggy bug fix
Wearing out the rewind button

By Team Register
Published Friday 9th December 2005 11:14 GMT

SonyBMG’s efforts to regain some credibility with PC users came unstuck again after it admitted that a patch for flawed content protection software included with some its CDs actually creates more problems for users.

The academics who have uncovered the latest security hole say the only way Sony can dig itself out is to recall all the CDs that shipped with the flakey software.

The hapless media giant snuggled up to the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier in the week to admit that Sunncomm MediaMax content protection software on some of its CDs could leave users’ PCs open to hijacking by unauthorised users. It instructed users to download a patch from MediaMax.

Now, academics at Princeton University have found that the patch itself suffers from the same bug, though in a slightly different way. They have advised users to not install the patch and indeed to not insert the affected disk in a PC under any circumstance, and the EFF and Sony have gotten behind them.

Professor Ed Felten and Alex Halderman the problem is “just as bad” as the DRM rootkit carried on other CDs and which caused a furore last month.

They go on to say that each CD sitting on a shelf is effectly a ticking timebomb, and the only way for Sony to really sort the problem is to recall all the affected disks.

Only the very paranoid would suggest that advice to not insert an audio CD into a PC delivers exactly the level of "content protection" Sony and the other music giants have been gunning for all this time.®

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I have been wondering how the crisis meetings at Sony have been going for this debacle?