Ubisoft Blames a Coding Error and Denies Rootkit in Uplay Service

Remember when we posted last night that Ubisoft's Uplay service had problems when it comes to your security? To make it clearer, how it purportedly installed a rootkit in your PC that allowed certain websites to gain unfettered access to affected computers?

Now, the publisher has released a statement and they're claiming that no rootkit was installed, nor was it part of their DRM strategy.

The official Ubisoft rep states, "the issue is not a rootkit, the Uplay application has never included a rootkit. The issue was from a browser plug-in that Uplay PC utilizes which suffered from a coding error that allowed unintended access to systems usually used by Ubisoft PC game developers to make their games."

In addition to that, Ubisoft outlined the actions they took to fix this and how players themselves can clear this snaffu up on their end.

The issue was brought to our attention early Monday morning and we had a fix into our QC department an hour and a half later. An automatic patch was launched that fixes the browser plugin so that it will only open the Uplay application. Ubisoft takes security issues very seriously, and we will continue to monitor all reports of vulnerabilities within our software and take swift action to resolve such issues.

Now, here's Ubisoft's solution on how to clean this up on your PC (which, pretty much means "patch Uplay up").

To update your Uplay client and apply the patch:

-Close any open web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.) If the web browser is open during the patch it will require restarting the browser.

-Launch the Uplay PC client. The Uplay PC client update will start automatically.

An updated version of the Uplay PC installer is also available to download from Uplay.com.