Only ten days after the discovery that Sony music CD's were installing rootkit software onto consumer computers, the first exploits are beginning to materialize on the Internet. A hack on the Blizzard's popular game 'World Of Warcraft' allowed players to use cheat tools because the game's Warden tamper protection software was thwarted by the rootkit's operation.

However, the exploitation does not stop with video games. The rootkit has made writing viruses exponentially easier by eliminating the need for programmers to code the necessary features to protect the virus from detection. The Backdoor.IRC.Snyd.A trojan horse now utilizes the Sony rootkit as its protection mechanism. Arriving by e-mail, this Breplibot trojan variant copies its critical files to system folders and into the system registry, hiding itself by prepending $sys$ to its own filenames. Once infected, the trojan reaches out to IRC servers awaiting external commands from exploiters.

The first round of lawsuits against Sony are only just getting underway and more will undoubtably follow. The preliminary suits deal with violations of consumer laws with respect to software. As the proximate cause to a virus epidemic, Sony may be facing damage lawsuits from users and businesses throughout the United States.