Ubisoft Uplay DRM Found To Include a Rootkit 473
An anonymous reader writes "It has been discovered that the Uplay system Ubisoft uses to both check a game is legal and offer up gaming achievements, multiplayer, and additional content, actually contains a rootkit. The discovery was made by Tavis Ormandy, an information security engineer at Google, when he installed Assassin's Creed: Revelations on his laptop. He noticed that during the installation Uplay installed a browser plug-in that allows any website to gain access to your machine through a backdoor and take control of it.The plug-in can be classed as a rootkit because it is thought to allow continued privileged access to a machine without a user's consent."
Update: Ubisoft has released a statement saying it has issued a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application.
Update: Ubisoft has released a statement saying it has issued a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application.
Re:Not really surprising. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Enough with giving Windows a pass (Score:4, Funny)
Can we stop calling them "Computer" games when what we really mean is Windows game? Linux constantly gets a pass in the popular press using generic terms when the entertainment is very specific to the Windows platform. Yes, other OSs get games but it is a drop in the bucket to the ocean of what is seen on Windows and it is disingenuous to mislead laypeople otherwise.
And don't worry, if Ubisoft ever makes a game available on linux, this is what you'd see:
[sudo] password for AC:
Re:Not really surprising. (Score:3, Funny)
You use a closed source firewall and are worried about what games are doing?
That seems pretty odd.
Re:Not really surprising. (Score:4, Funny)
"Will it find your porn?"
I dunno, a DRM scheme that found all my porn and automatically downloaded similar high def porn clips would be pretty useful. Would save me a lot of time on YouPorn.
Re:That's awesome (Score:4, Funny)
The problem is that if you try to boycott every game publisher or developer that does stupid things like this, you'll shortly end up boycotting almost every company.
Never mind, there's always Tux Racer.
Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s (Score:4, Funny)
I hope you don't have any Apple products or software on your system...
Re:under the DMCA any antivirus software can get s (Score:4, Funny)
1) give me all your money, assets and all future earnings and assets.
2) whenever there is a full moon, stand in a public area on one foot and howl at the moon.
3) Say "boop" every 87.24 minutes.