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RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Thursday, 11 February 1988 Volume 6 : Issue 25

FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

Contents: Something fishy is going on with credit cards (William Daul) "Colloidal goo" considered harmful to ATM's (Jon Jacky) Lottery Random Numbers Too Random... (Henry (H.W.) Troup) New Scientist article on viruses (Bernie Cosell) Virus code and Infected Definitions (Vin McLellan) Yet Another Virus - The "Brain" Virus (Bruce N. Baker) Two virus messages from Info-IBMPC (Jack Goldberg) Virus (Trojan) protection program now available from SIMTEL20(Keith Petersen) Another PC Virus (Y. Radai) [still more]

The RISKS Forum is moderated. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good taste, objective, coherent, concise, nonrepetitious. Diversity is welcome. Contributions to RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM, Requests to RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM. For Vol i issue j, FTP SRI.COM, CD STRIPE:<RISKS>, GET RISKS-i.j. Volume summaries in (i, max j) = (1,46),(2,57),(3,92),(4,97),(5,85).

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Date: 11 Feb 88 00:27 PST From: William Daul / McAir / McDonnell-Douglas Corp <WBD.MDC@OFFICE-8.ARPA> Subject: Something fishy is going on with credit cards

From: PENINSULA TIMES TRIBUNE (Palo Alto, Feb. 10, 1988)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The same eelskin used to make popular handbags may be erasing credit cards and confounding bankers by scrambling magnetic codes on automatic teller cards, experts said Tuesday. "We've had dozens of calls from banks and individuals complaining that (automated teller machine) cards and credit cards are sick." said John McCosker, director of San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium and a leading fish scientist. McCrosker believes the metallic residue left over from the tanning process performed in Korea, where most of the wallets and purses are made, may be causing the problem.

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From: jon@june.cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) Subject: "Colloidal goo" considered harmful to ATM's Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 10:33:35 PST

... Or, [icthyologist John McClosker] said, the problem might be from the "colloiodal goo that comes out of the slime glands of these awful things." The "eelskin" wallet problem has become so serious that (several banks) are warning card holders. ['COLLOIDAL GOO' SPELLS HEADACHE FOR BANKERS, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Feb 11, 1988, p. C1]

[Another theory, from an article by Kevin Leary in the SF Chron, 10 Feb 88:

Katie Jarman, Bank of America's senior project analyst for the bank's ATM system, is not so sure. "We have found that when we demagnetized Versatel cards, the wallets or purses have large magnetic clasps that could do the damage." ]

[Perhaps someone has a magnetic personeelity in the Korean tanning salons that process the slime-eel skin. Check with Colloids of London. {OK, what does Sylvester Stallone eat for breakfast? Sly-meal.} PGN]

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Date: 11 Feb 88 08:10:00 EST From: Henry (H.W.) Troup <HWT%BNR.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU> Subject: Lottery Random Numbers Too Random...

Tuesday, February 9th's Ottawa Citizen ran a story, with a photo of the ticket, of a lottery ticket with an impossible number. The lottery is called 6/49. The player chooses six numbers between 1 and 49. A recent function added is the "QuickPick", where the lottery terminal generates a set of numbers for you.

The photo clearly showed the number 67 in one generated line! Fortunately for players, the final prize numbers are generated with a mechanical "bingo" machine (the one with numbered ping-pong balls). But one wonders what else might be lurking in that software...

Has this been reported in other jursidictions using point-of-sale lottery terminals? Anyone out there know anything about them?

[If you see any suspicious types hanging around a lottery site, be sure to do some strong type checking -- wOTTAWAy to go! PGN]

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Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 8:45:34 EST From: Bernie Cosell <cosell@WILMA.BBN.COM> Subject: New Scientist article on viruses

The 28 jan issue of _New_Scientist_ has a short article on viruses: "Phantoms of the operating system, Andrew Emmerson with news of an insidious threat to personal computers". Nothing particular new or interesting here for RISKS readers, but it is a pretty accessible article for the otherwise-uninformed.

Bernie Cosell, BBN Labs, Cambridge, MA 02238

[At least the title is catchy! PGN]

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Date: Thu 11 Feb 88 01:46:15-EST From: "Vin McLellan" <SIDNEY.G.VIN%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU> Subject: Virus code and Infected Definitions

Discussions about viruses might benefit from some rigorous definitions. The copy protection devices allegedly used in Softguard 3.0, and earlier installed in Microsoft's master disk of ACCESS, apparently without the company's knowledge or permission, and even earlier (back in '84), announced as a forthcoming product by Vault Corp., have all at various times been described as viruses, even by officials at the companies involved. Yet all seem to actually be fairly classic Trojan horse code, set to execute and damage either the program being illicitly copied, or that program and other available disk files, when and if the program is "pirated."

A virus, according to Fred Cohen, a widely acknowledged expert on the threat, is "a program that can 'infect' other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of itself. With the infection property, every virus can spread thoughout a computer system or network using the authorizations of every user using it to infect their programs. Every program that gets infected may also act as a virus and thus the infection spreads."

Even in a PC environment, a virus is defined by contagion, by its ability to bury copies of itself in other programs and thus spread to multiple disks, multiple users. We may have many occasions to discuss the virus threat in the future, and no one will be served if we allow the term to become as vague as the word "worm" is today. Those who make a living discussing security issues will be haunted for years by the erroneous labelling of that automated Trojan chain letter in Bitnet and IBM's Vnet as the "Christmas virus." (Some IBM engineers ended up labelling that a "bacteria," just to help worried customers get their terms straight.)

The Germans -- who seem to have gotten into the development of viruses earlier and with even greater enthusiasm than we see today in amateur America -- seem to think that writing viruses that evade CRC or checksum alarms is child's play, literally. If the virus can't forge a checksum, they fiddle with program's name or set the virus to displace the protected program, so the virus code gets executed first and separately, then the protected program is either renamed or run consecutively. Folks there and elsewhere who have been exploring the potential of a constantly evolving virus also seem a little awestruck at what they've been coming up with.

Vin McLellan, The Privacy Guild, Boston, Ma. (617) 426-2487

[Thanks. I have on various occasions referred to Trojan viruses, but clearly the attacks are Trojan horses at the outset. What is put inside the Trojan horse varies from attack to attack. PGN]

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Date: Thu 11 Feb 88 16:50:47-PST From: Bruce N. Baker <BNBaker@KL.SRI.COM> Subject: Yet Another Virus - The "Brain" Virus

I expect some RISKS readers have heard of this one but I have not seen anything yet in RISKS about it. This is taken form the February 3, 1988 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education and is quoted here in part without permission.

George Washington University, the University of Delaware, and the University of Pittsburgh all have taken steps to eradicate a virus - known as the "brain" virus because it can be identified by "(c) BRAIN" on the directory screen. The virus was created by Basit Farooq Alvi, 19, who claims to be a college student in Lahore, Pakistan. In 1986 Mr. Alvi and his brother Amjad, 23, wrote the computer code for the virus and placed it on a disk that they gave to another student. He did it "for fun," he said and has no idea how it might have reached the United States. A message with Mr. Alvi's name, address, and telephone number appears in the computer code that carries the virus.

The antidote is to substitute a clean operating system for the one that was contaminated with the virus.

End of excerpts from the article.

Many RISKS readers and others are extremely concerned about the proliferation of viruses. To summarize some of the virus detection and eradication programs that have appeared in RISKS to date, public domain programs include: CHK4BOMB - see RISKS 5.79 BOMBSQAD - see RISKS 5.79 FLU_SHOT - [See THIS ISSUE OF RISKS] Programs to buy: DATA PHYSICIAN - references to it in several RISKS issues but nowhere does this information about the vendor appear: Digital Dispatch Inc. Attention: Mr. Eric Hansen 1580 Rice Creek Rd. Minneapolis, Minnesota 55432 Telephone (617) 571-7400 U.S.A. For MS/DOS systems, sells for $199 TRUSS was mentioned in RISKS 6.12 for UNIX version 8 but no indication was given about its availability to the public - free or for a cost. I have asked Dennis L. Mumaugh, "moss!cuuxb!dlm"@RUTGERS.EDU to let us know.

Bruce N. Baker, SRI International

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Subject: Two virus messages from Info-IBMPC Date: Thu, 11 Feb 88 09:19:04 -0800 From: Jack Goldberg <goldberg@csl.sri.com>

EXCERPTS FROM Info-IBMPC Digest Mon, 8 Feb 88 Volume 7 : Issue 8 This Week's Editor: Gregory Hicks -- Chinhae Korea <hicks@walker-emh.arpa> Today's Topics: Another PC Virus (Y. Radai) Virus (Trojan) protection program now available (Keith Peterson) ...

SIMTEL20.ARPA can now be accessed access from BITNET is via LISTSERV@RPICICGE.BITNET using LISTSERV Commands INFO-IBMPC BBS Phone Numbers: (213) 827-2635 and (213) 827-2515

[We include the article by Keith Peterson first, and then another (longer) article on the Israeli virus by Y. Radai -- although we have had earlier articles on it in RISKS-6.6 and 6.12. PGN]

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Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1988 00:56 MST From: Keith Petersen <W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA> Subject: Virus (Trojan) protection program now available from SIMTEL20

FROM Info-IBMPC Digest Mon, 8 Feb 88 Volume 7 : Issue 8 SIMTEL20.ARPA can now be accessed access from BITNET is via LISTSERV@RPICICGE.BITNET using LISTSERV Commands INFO-IBMPC BBS Phone Numbers: (213) 827-2635 and (213) 827-2515

Filename Type Bytes CRC

Directory PD1:<MSDOS.DSKUTL> FLUSHOT2.ARC.1 BINARY 5539 AFA8H

Here are some comments from the author, Ross Greenberg:

There exists a low-level form of dirt who gets joy out of destroying your work. They release a program, typically called a 'Trojan Horse', which is designed to erase or otherwise damage your disks.

The programs are released into the public domain and typically are downloaded or distributed exactly as you may have received this file. Once run, they would print some sort of self-congratulatory message and proceed to erase your data. Obviously, these type of programs are Not A Good Thing, and should be avoided. However, usually you'll only know you've been bit by a trojan after the fact.

Recently, a new breed has been developed. Called a 'virus', it infects all disks that it sees with a copy of itself, and then each of these copies are capable of infecting all disks that *they* see.

Eventually, at some predetermined instance (a date, a time, a certain number of copy operations), the virus attacks and destroys whatever disks it can. By this time, though, the virus has spread, and a friends' machine may also be infected, infecting the disks of their friends and so forth.

It was to counter just such a program that the enclosed program, called FLU_SHOT, was developed. The current virus making the rounds infects the command processing program called "COMMAND.COM". Every bootable DOS disk must have a copy of this file. FLU_SHOT examines each write and will not allow a write operation to the COMMAND.COM file to take place without your permission. Normally, there should never be a write operation to this file, so it should be effective in that regard.

To run FLU_SHOT, place a copy of it in your root directory on the disk you boot your system from. Additionally, a line to invoke FLU_SHOT should be placed in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

If you find the virus attacking your disk, please try to preserve a copy of it and to forward it to me at my BBS at (212)-889-6438. Once I have a copy of the virus, I should be able to develop another program which would serve as a vaccine.

Please be aware that there is a possibility that, if FLU_SHOT determines a write operation taking place to your COMMAND.COM, it *may* be a legitimate one ---- check the currently running program. FLU_SHOT may indicate that a TSR program you're running seems to be causing a problem. If this happens to you, and you're sure the TSR you're running is a valid one, then merely place the FLU_SHOT invokation line in your AUTOEXEC *after* the TSR invokation line.

Additionally, FLU_SHOT can not determine whether your current COMMAND.COM is infected, only if a COMMAND.COM is about to be infected.

The odds of you being hit with this virus are slim, but running FLU_SHOT should keep this particular incarnation of the virus from infecting your disks.

Ross M. Greenberg (212)-889-6438 24hr BBS, 2400/1200,N,8,1

Note from Keith: This program is legitimate. Ross is a personal friend whose programming skills I highly respect.

--Keith Petersen Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARPA Uucp: {decwrl,harvard,lll-crg,ucbvax,uunet,uw-beaver}!simtel20.arpa!w8sdz GEnie: W8SDZ

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Date: Wed, 27 Jan 88 13:22:27 +0200 From: Y. Radai <RADAI1%HBUNOS.BITNET@CNUCE-VM.ARPA> Subject: Another PC Virus

FROM Info-IBMPC Digest Mon, 8 Feb 88 Volume 7 : Issue 8 SIMTEL20.ARPA can now be accessed access from BITNET is via LISTSERV@RPICICGE.BITNET using LISTSERV Commands INFO-IBMPC BBS Phone Numbers: (213) 827-2635 and (213) 827-2515

Issue 74 of the Info-IBMPC digest contained a description of a "virus" discovered at Lehigh University which destroys the contents of disks after propagating itself to other disks four times. Some of us here in Israel, never far behind other countries in new achievements (good or bad), are suffering from what appears to be a local strain of the virus. Since it may have spread to other countries (or, for all we know, may have been im- ported from abroad), I thought it would be a good idea to spread the word around.

Our version, instead of inhabiting only COMMAND.COM, can infect any ex- ecutable file. It works in two stages: When you execute an infected EXE or COM file the first time after booting, the virus captures interrupt 21h and inserts its own code. After this has been done, whenever any EXE file is executed, the virus code is written to the end of that file, increasing its size by 1808 bytes. COM files are also affected, but the 1808 bytes are written to the beginning of the file, another 5 bytes (the string "MsDos") are written to the end, and this extension occurs only once.

The disease manifests itself in at least three ways: (1) Because of this continual increase in the size of EXE files, such programs eventually be- come too large to be loaded into memory or there is insufficient room on the disk for further extension. (2) After a certain interval of time (apparently 30 minutes after infection of memory), delays are inserted so that execution of programs slows down considerably. (The speed seems to be reduced by a factor of 5 on ordinary PCs, but by a smaller factor on faster models.) (3) After memory has been infected on a Friday the 13th (the next such date being May 13, 1988), any COM or EXE file which is executed on that date gets deleted. Moreover, it may be that other files are also af- fected on that date; I'm still checking this out.

(If this is correct, then use of Norton's UnErase or some similar utility to restore files which are erased on that date will not be sufficient.)

Note that this virus infects even read-only files, that it does not change the date and time of the files which it infects, and that while the virus cannot infect a write-protected diskette, you get no clue that an at- tempt has been made by a "Write protect error" message since the pos- sibility of writing is checked before an actual attempt to write is made.

It is possible that the whole thing might not have been discovered in time were it not for the fact that when the virus code is present, an EXE file is increased in size *every* time it is executed. This enlargement of EXE files on each execution is apparently a bug; probably the intention was that it should grow only once, as with COM files, and it is fortunate that the continual growth of the EXE files enabled us to discover the virus much sooner than otherwise.

From the above it follows that you can fairly easily detect whether your files have become infected. Simply choose one of your EXE files (preferably your most frequently executed one), note its length, and ex- ecute it twice. If it does not grow, it is not infected by this virus. If it does, the present file is infected, and so, probably, are some of your other files. (Another way of detecting this virus is to look for the string "sUMsDos" in bytes 4-10 of COM files or about 1800 bytes before the end of EXE files; however, this method is less reliable since the string can be altered without attenuating the virus.)

If any of you have heard of this virus in your area, please let me know; perhaps it is an import after all. (Please specify dates; ours was noticed on Dec. 24 but presumably first infected our disks much earlier.)

Fortunately, both an "antidote" and a "vaccine" have been developed for this virus. The first program cures already infected files by removing the virus code, while the second (a RAM-resident program) prevents future in- fection of memory and displays a message when there is any attempt to in- fect it. One such pair of programs was written primarily by Yuval Rakavy, a student in our Computer Science Dept.

In their present form these two programs are specific to this particular virus; they will not help with any other, and of course, the author of the present virus may develop a mutant against which these two programs will be ineffective. On the other hand, it is to the credit of our people that they were able to come up with the above two programs within a relatively short time.

My original intention was to put this software on some server so that it could be available to all free of charge. However, the powers that be have decreed that it may not be distributed outside our university except under special circumstances, for example that an epidemic of this virus actually exists at the requesting site and that a formal request is sent to our head of computer security by the management of the institution.

Incidentally, long before the appearance of this virus, I had been using a software equivalent of a write-protect tab, i.e. a program to prevent writing onto a hard disk, especially when testing new software. It is called PROTECT, was written by Tom Kihlken, and appeared in the Jan. 13, 1987 issue of PC Magazine; a slightly amended version was submitted to the Info-IBMPC library. Though I originally had my doubts, it turned out that it is effective against this virus, although it wouldn't be too hard to develop a virus or Trojan horse for which this would not be true. (By the way, I notice in Issue 3 of the digest, which I received only this morning, that the version of PROTECT.ASM in the Info-IBMPC library has been replaced by another version submitted by R. Kleinrensing. However, in one respect the new version seems to be inferior: one should *not* write-protect all drives above C: because that might prevent you from writing to a RAMdisk or an auxiliary diskette drive.)

Of course, this is only the beginning. We can expect to see many new viruses both here and abroad. In fact, two others have already been dis- covered here. In both cases the target date is April 1. One affects only COM files, while the other affects only EXE files. What they do on that date is to display a "Ha ha" message and lock up, forcing you to cold boot. Moreover (at least in the EXE version), there is also a lockup one hour after infection of memory on any day on which you use the default date of 1-1-80. (These viruses may actually be older than the above-described virus, but simply weren't noticed earlier since they extend files only once.)

The author of the above-mentioned anti-viral software has now extended his programs to combat these two viruses as well. At present, he is con- centrating his efforts on developing broad-spectrum programs, i.e. programs capable of detecting a wide variety of viruses.

Just now (this will give you an idea of the speed at which developments are proceeding here) I received notice of the existence of an anti-viral program written by someone else, which "checks executable files and reports whether they include code which performs absolute writes to disk, disk for- matting, writes to disk without updating the FAT, etc." (I haven't yet received the program itself.)

Y. Radai, Computation Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET

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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest ************************