Ubisoft Uplay Rootkit

[lindy]

If your playing a Ubisoft title that has Uplay chances are good that your machine has been rooted! More HERE

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Unless this plugin is hidden, I don't see it on IE9. Then again, I'm using 64-bit. uPlay is 32-bit. There's a few EA ones on 32-bit (mostly rlated to Sonar which is a VoIP program used for BF3) but I see nothing about Ubisoft.

 

[Solaris17]

ill go check my ps3 right now.

 

[lindy]

Unless this plugin is hidden, I don't see it on IE9. Then again, I'm using 64-bit. uPlay is 32-bit. There's a few EA ones on 32-bit (mostly rlated to Sonar which is a VoIP program used for BF3) but I see nothing about Ubisoft.

I don't know much about IE, but in Firefox I checked tools/Add-ons/Plugins, and sure enough there are two, UPlay PC 1.0.0.0 and UPlay PC Hub Plugin 1.0.0.1 . Uninstalling the game (in my case Silent Hunter5) won't remove the plugins.

 

[newtekie1]

This isn't a rootkit. I'm tired of every single thing that people don't like that has an unintentional security hole being called a rootkit.

Several criteria need to be met before something should be called a rootkit.

1.) It must be malicious.
2.) It must be purposely hidden from user and traditional forms of malicious software detection(AKA virus scanners).
3.) It must enable continued privileged access to the computer.

In this case, only number 3 is met. The backdoor was not malicious, it was unintentional, and the plug-in was not hidden from the user. Therefor this is not a rootkit, the term rootkit is only being used to make the threat seem worse than it really is. This is nothing more than a plug-in with a security hole that was fixed extremely quickly after being found. No need to call the national guard.

 

[lindy]

Theres one more thing you can add to malware... Won't (or can't easily) uninstall. Which is true of this particular piece of malware.

 

[newtekie1]

Theres one more thing you can add to malware... Won't (or can't easily) uninstall. Which is true of this particular piece of malware.

This isn't malware either, the term malware comes directly from Malicious, this isn't malicious so it isn't malware.

And being hard to uninstall actually isn't a requirement for a rootkit.

Also, Uplay is actually very easily uninstalled, a better article about this incident can be read at rockpaperchotgun.com: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/07/30/psa-possible-security-risk-in-some-ubisoft-pc-games/

They tell you how to check if you are affected, how to easily disable the plug-in or that you can simply uninstall uplay just like you would uninstall any other program. It is as easy to uninstall as possible actually.

 

[Widjaja]

It looks to me as if they made some kind of blunder when releasing an update.
Sure most of us have come to know Ubisoft as taking anti-piracy to the extremes but I do not believe what happened was intentional.

 

[Crap Daddy]

There is already an update to that article. Ubisoft acted.

 

[lindy]

There is already an update to that article. Ubisoft acted

Thanks Crap Daddy, ya' beat me to it...

 

[TheMailMan78]

OMG you mean it wasnt a root kit!

 

[RejZoR]

I'm not buying or playing any Ubisoft games since the introduction of always on protection so i couldn't care any less...