In 2005, Sony BMG installed DRM software on users’ computers without clearly notifying the user or requiring confirmation. Among other things, the software included a rootkit, which created a security vulnerability. When the nature of the software was made public much later, Sony BMG initially minimized the significance of the vulnerabilities, but eventually recalled millions of CDs, and made several attempts to patch the software to remove the rootkit. Class action lawsuits were filed, which were ultimately settled by agreements to provide affected consumers with a cash payout or album downloads free of DRM.[32]
There were some people that went out and purposefully installed the rootkit. Why would someone do that? Those people like to cheat in games. The rootkit would let them hide their cheat software from anti-cheat software that scanned what processes were running.
Interesting… I wonder how many hackers took the rootkit and used it for other nefarious things…