It is obvious that all the rumors around StarForce hazards are spread by international piracy groups. Our recent contest has just proven that StarForce does not damage optical drives.
Now we would like to elaborate on the topic of StarForce drivers.
Some users of StarForce protected products have been curious about StarForce drivers.
Our support service received questions about the functionality of the drivers and whether there could be a security issue for the PC. At StarForce we care about our clients and our users. Most of all we care about your IT security and we would never use anything that could possibly question your system’s integrity.
The purpose of StarForce copy protection is to resist emulation, cracking and reverse engineering. These matters are usually salved by means of disc binding. Also to face these tasks StarForce installs four drivers that remain inactive until the protected product is run.
Besides StarForce software drivers at ring 0 are installed by many different programs such as emulators, anti-viruses, firewalls and etc. Here is how StarForce drivers work:
Driver sfsync02 serves the purpose of CD validity check and identification of different emulators.
Driver sfhlp02 + sfdrv01 – is in charge of functioning of the core, including anti-debugger tools.
Driver sfvfs02 – is essential for data protection and StarForce virtual file system.
The matter is that all of known emulators install ring 0 drivers. Obviously, the only way to prevent emulation is to work on the same level and that is the reason our copy protection installs drivers. Another most recent revelation about emulators is that they use rootkits. That could actually cause security problems for the OS.
This discovery made by Mark Russinovich should make any user at least cautious when using emulators.
To conclude, we must say that StarForce does not use rootkits, StarForce does not cause security issues and StarForce is not the only software developer that installs ring 0 drivers. We appreciate all the feedback from our clients and users and that is why StarForce drivers will be automatically uninstalled in the latest version of our copy protection system FrontLine 4.0. The official release with many other significant improvements will follow within days.
We do our best to help you feel protected!
If you have any questions about StarForce protected products, please contact:
support@star-force.com
Print this page
