Stung by continuing criticism, the world’s second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday to temporarily suspend making music CDs with antipiracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers.

Sony defended its right to prevent customers from illegally copying music but said it would halt manufacturing CDs with the “XCP” technology as a precautionary measure.

The antipiracy technology, which works only on Windows computers, prevents customers from making more than a few copies of the CD and prevents them from loading the CD’s songs onto Apple Computer’s popular iPod portable music players.

Sony’s announcement came a day after leading security companies disclosed that hackers were distributing malicious programs over the Internet that exploited the antipiracy technology’s ability to avoid detection.