Spyware Doctor & Sony Rootkit

Received yesterday from PC Tools this email:


Smokey, Thanks for contacting PC Tools Support!

There has been a lot of discussion lately in the press regarding rootkits and particularly the Sony/BMG rootkit to enable copyright protection on their commercial products.

Spyware Doctor removes rootkits which hide (cloak) everything with a name starting with $sys$, these rootkits can be easily exploited by malware programs.

Spyware Doctor does not remove Sony's DRM copyright program which uses names starting with $sys$. However, malware attempting to exploit the Sony rootkit to hide itself is no longer hidden and will be detected and removed by Spyware Doctor.

Please reply to this message if you require further assistance.

Kind Regards,

Gary Arnold
Technical Support Team Manager
PC TOOLS Pty Ltd

 

Here you find the complete uninstaller from Sony...

http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/updates.html

Fax

 

Yet another reason to dump SpywareDoctor. Even MSAS claims to remove the Sony rootkit, so why not SD? What a bunch of traitors IMO. The Sony rootkit IS malware and ANY anti-malware vendor who supports malwale like PCTools, should be boycotted!

 

Hi Ramrod,

This is PC Tools, maker of Spyware Doctor.

We would like to clarify that we do not support malwares in anyway.

As mentioned earlier, any malware attempting to exploit the Sony rootkit to hide itself is no longer hidden and will be detected and removed by Spyware Doctor.

If you have further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on:
http://www.pctools.com/contact/support/guide/spyware-doctor/

Regards,

PC Tools

 

PC Tools could do itself and it's customers a WORLD of service by establishing your own forum presence somewhere. It would certainly help to answer a lot of questions while quieting a lot of rumors, critics and negative talk while also promoting the product in a positive light. Why this hasn't been adopted, though, is anybody's guess.......

 

IMO, I would NOT say that Spyware Doctor supports malware. However, due to a dismal performance related to false positives this program has been removed from my PC.

The last straw was when Spyware Doctor flagged part of my AOL software as malware !!

HR