29 Malware installed on Windows PCs by 'respectable' companies?
Sunday 10th December, 2006
It's still happening
Rob, May 2015
This sort of thing seems to happen alot recently. Remember the Sony rootkit scandal? I'm sure Sony wish you wouldn't. Sony's reaction was interesting, they initially acted as though they had the right to install the rootkit on their customer's PCs. Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's president of global digital business, was outrageously quoted as saying:
Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?
ComScore, the company involved in this particular incident, claim they would never install software without permission, and it does appear that it is being installed by third parties. The risk is that the software takes screenshots of every Web page viewed by its 1 million participants, even transactions completed in secure sessions, like online banking, or shopping.
It's not a safe world for Windows users, when even 'legitimate' software is proving invasive.