Heise Online is reporting about yet another example of the ever-warming relationship of copy protection and rootkit technologies. The affair started with the digital rights management system Sony BMG was using to protect audio CD’s. Now, F-Secure can also confirm that at least the German DVD release of the movie “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” contains a copy protection mechanism which uses rootkit-like cloaking technology .
The Settec Alpha-DISC copy protection system used on the DVD contains user-mode rootkit-like features to hide itself. The system will hide its own process, but does not appear to hide any files or registry entries. This makes the feature a bit less dangerous, as anti-virus products will still be able to scan all files on the disk.
If you suspect you have this copy protection system installed on your computer and you wish to remove it, the manufacturer is providing an uninstaller.
