McAfee > Theat Center > Virus Detail Page

Overview

This is a virus detection. Viruses are programs that self-replicate recursively, meaning that infected systems spread the virus to other systems, which then propagate the virus further. While many viruses contain a destructive payload, it's quite common for viruses to do nothing more than spread from one system to another.

Characteristics

This is a mass-mailing worm with the following characteristics:

• contains its own SMTP engine to construct outgoing messages
• harvests email addresses from the victim machine
• the From: address of messages is spoofed
• attachment can be a password-protected zip file, with the password included in the message body.
• contains a remote access component (notification is sent to hacker)
• copies itself to folders that have the phrase shar in the name (such as common peer-to-peer applications; KaZaa, Bearshare, Limewire, etc)

Mail Propagation

The message-bodies are constructed with several parts, to effectively customize the email, to make it appear to be a legitimate warning notification. The details are as follows:

From : (the address is spoofed, using the recipient's domain name and a user name taken from the following list)

• management@
• administration@
• staff@
• noreply@
• support@ 

Subject :

• E-mail account security warning.
• Notify about using the e-mail account.
• Warning about your e-mail account.
• Important notify about your e-mail account.
• Email account utilization warning.
• Notify about your e-mail account utilization.
• E-mail account disabling warning.

Body Text:

Greeting -

• Dear user of %s,
• Dear user of %s e-mail server gateway,
• Dear user of e-mail server "%s",
• Hello user of %s e-mail server,
• Dear user of "%s" mailing system,
• Dear user, the management of %s mailing system wants to let you know that,

(Where %s will be replaced with the recipient's domain name. For example, the domain name for user@mail.com  would be "mail.com")

Main message body -

• Your e-mail account has been temporary disabled because of unauthorized access.
• Our main mailing server will be temporary unavaible for next two days, to continue receiving mail in these days you have to configure our free
  auto-forwarding service.
• Your e-mail account will be disabled because of improper using in next
  three days, if you are still wishing to use it, please, resign your account information.
• We warn you about some attacks on your e-mail account. Your computer may contain viruses, in order to keep your computer and e-mail account safe, please, follow the instructions.
• Our antivirus software has detected a large ammount of viruses outgoing from your email account, you may use our free anti-virus tool to clean up your computer software.
• Some of our clients complained about the spam (negative e-mail content) outgoing from your e-mail account. Probably, you have been infected by a proxy-relay trojan server. In order to keep your computer safe, follow the instructions.

Attachment explanation -

• For more information see the attached file.
• Further details can be obtained from attached file.
• Advanced details can be found in attached file.
• For details see the attach.
• For details see the attached file.
• For further details see the attach.
• Please, read the attach for further details.
• Pay attention on attached file.

Password information -  (if received as a ZIP file) 

• For security reasons attached file is password protected. The password is "%s".
• For security purposes the attached file is password protected. Password is "%s".
• Attached file is protected with the password for security reasons. Password is %s.
• In order to read the attach you have to use the following password: %s.

(Where %s will be replaced with a 5-digit random number)

Closing -

• The Management,
• Sincerely,
• Best wishes,
• Have a good day,
• Cheers,
• Kind regards,

The %s team                           http://www.%s

(The %s will be replaced with the recipient's domain name. The first part of the closing is selected from the list, and the second part is always present.)

Attachment: (May be .EXE .PIF or .ZIP)

• Attach
• Information
• Readme
• Document
• Info
• TextDocument
• Text
• MoreInfo
• Message

The virus copies itself into the Windows System directory as WINSYS.EXE. For example:

• C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\WINSYS.EXE

It also creates two files, WINSYS.EXEOPEN and WINSYS.EXEOPENOPEN which may either be another copy of itself or a ZIP file (~19KB) to be sent in email.

The following Registry key is added to hook system startup:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
  CurrentVersion\Run "ssate.exe"  = C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\WINSYS.EXE

Additionally, the following Registry keys are added:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DateTime 

The worm uses the following icon, to make it appear that the file is a WordPad document:
 

This worm attempts to terminate the process of security programs with the the following filenames:

• ATUPDATER.EXE
• AVWUPD32.EXE
• AVPUPD.EXE
• LUALL.EXE
• DRWEBUPW.EXE
• ICSSUPPNT.EXE
• ICSUPP95.EXE
• UPDATE.EXE
• NUPGRADE.EXE
• ATUPDATER.EXE
• AUPDATE.EXE
• AUTODOWN.EXE
• AUTOTRACE.EXE
• AUTOUPDATE.EXE
• AVXQUAR.EXE
• CFIAUDIT.EXE
• MCUPDATE.EXE
• NUPGRADE.EXE
• OUTPOST.EXE
• AVLTMAIN.EXE

The worm opens port 2745 (TCP) on the victim machine.

Symptoms

Port 2745 (TCP) open on the victim machine

Outgoing messages matching the described characteristics

Files/Registry keys as described

Method of Infection

  Mail Propagation

This virus constructs messages using its own SMTP engine. Target email addresses are harvested from files with the following extensions on the victim machine:

• .wab
• .txt
• .msg
• .htm
• .xml
• .dbx
• .mdx
• .eml
• .nch
• .mmf
• .ods
• .cfg
• .asp
• .php
• .pl
• .adb
• .tbb
• .sht
• .uin
• .cgi

The virus spoofs the sender address by using a harvested address in the From: field.

The virus avoids sending itself to addresses containing the following:

• @hotmail.com
• @msn.com
• @microsoft
• @avp.
• noreply
• local
• root@
• postmaster@

Peer To Peer Propagation

Files are created in folders that contain the phrase shar :

• Microsoft Office 2003 Crack, Working!.exe
• Microsoft Office XP working Crack, Keygen.exe
• Microsoft Windows XP, WinXP Crack, working Keygen.exe
• Porno Screensaver.scr
• Porno, sex, oral, anal cool, awesome!!.exe
• Porno pics arhive, xxx.exe
• Serials.txt.exe
• Windown Longhorn Beta Leak.exe
• Windows Sourcecode update.doc.exe
• XXX hardcore images.exe
• Opera 8 New!.exe
• WinAmp 5 Pro Keygen Crack Update.exe
• WinAmp 6 New!.exe
• Matrix 3 Revolution English Subtitles.exe
• Adobe Photoshop 9 full.exe
• Ahead Nero 7.exe
• ACDSee 9.exe

Remote Access Component

The virus listens on TCP port 2745 for remote connections. It attempts to notify the author that the infected system is ready to accept commands, by contacting various websites, calling a PHP script on the remote sites. At the time of this writing this script does not exist on any of these sites.

• http://postertog.de/scr.php
• http://www.gfotxt.net/scr.php
• http://www.maiklibis.de/scr.php

Removal

All Users:
Use specified engine and DAT files for detection and removal.

Modifications made to the system Registry and/or INI files for the purposes of hooking system startup, will be successfully removed if cleaning with the recommended engine and DAT combination (or higher).

Additional Windows ME/XP removal considerations

Variants

Variants

N/A