World of Warcraft cheaters seek sanctuary with Sony BMG software

Sony BMG copy protected CDs have just found a brand new market: online game hackers.

Game hackers, ever on the alert for cheats that enable them to bypass traditional software install processes, have confirmed that Sony BMG’s content protection software has the ability to “hide� them from even the most complex cheater detection programs.

Most common game hacks are cheats that block the game from checking the software’s registry key, a unique code that identifies the game as being a valid, authorized copy. Game manufacturers, becoming equally savvy and desired to protect their investments, have developed more and more complex methods to secure game content from would-be hackers. The maker of World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment, has taken elaborate measures to guard against potential hackers players. Most controversial is the “Warden�, Blizzard’s answer to unauthorized players seeking to crack into the game using fake registry keys. Warden, deemed spy ware by many in the gaming industry, is designed to scam system processes while the game is running to search for illegal hacks.

It appears the problem with Sony BMG’s CDs lies in the software hiding properties. The company’s copy protection software, designed to prevent illegal consumer copying and piracy, uses an electronic keycode to authenticate the CD. The software hides certain files from detection unless the CD is determined to be authentic. This technology, commonly called a “rootkit�, has been implemented on nearly all of Sony BMG’s CDs.

World of Warcraft online game hackers have discovered that using this file cloaking system has enable them to hide their cheating from Blizzard, allowing them to remain escape detection from Warden. The result is that cheating in the online gaming world has become nearly impossible to detect.

Sony BMG has responded with a patch to the company’s copy protection software to modify the behavior of the program, but it may be too late for the online gaming industry. Given that the patch can only be implemented on future CDs released by Sony BMG, the problem remains that tens of thousands of CDs are already on the market that have the capability to exploit game authentication software. For the online game manufacturers like Blizzard, this is a frightening prospect, requiring even more time and money spend in the design room to combat hackers’ efforts to highjack their software.

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