Sony is a big company, and various parts and subsidiaries are pretty much totally disconnected from other areas of the company, but given the disastrous PR that Sony had to deal with following the original rootkit debacle (which really was more of a BMG issue than a Sony one) you would think that perhaps someone higher up at Sony corporate would have sent around a memo or something to all the rest of Sony, suggesting that they check around and make sure that none of their products had rootkit-like functionality. Either that didn't happen... or someone didn't get the memo. It appears that a line of USB flash drive sticks that Sony sold have been discovered to install rootkit-like functionality that hides a folder on users' computers. And, of course, just like the original Sony rootkit, this hidden folder is perfect for malware writers to use as hiding places for their malware. While this one probably isn't as big a deal as last time around, let's see if Sony figured out that brushing it off because no one knows what rootkits are isn't exactly the best response to such a discovery. In the meantime, this highlights (once again) how weak many security programs are that they don't automatically look for this type of action in order to prevent it from happening in the first place.