The revelation 5 years ago that Sony BMG was planting a secret rootkit onto its music customers' Windows PCs in the name of anti-piracy is seen now as one of the all-time significant events in IT security history.
"Sony rootkit was one of the seminal moments in malware history," says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Helsinki, Finland-based security company F-Secure. "Not only did it bring rootkits into public knowledge, it also gave a good lesson to media companies on how not to do their DRM [digital rights management] solutions."

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