[Rhodes22-list] MyDoom Virus Alert

[Bill Effros]

Speedy Worm Invades E-Mail In-Boxes 


By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Monday, January 26, 2004; 9:16 PM 


A rapidly spreading e-mail worm on Monday afternoon shut down e-mail systems at several large corporations and is causing problems for computer users connected to the Internet, security experts said.

Known as "MyDoom," it is the fastest spreading e-mail worm ever, according to Network Associates, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of McAfee Antivirus software. The company classified it as a "high alert," its most severe status level.

Mydoom is wreaking havoc with businesses and home computer users, said Steven Sundermeier, product manager for Central Command, an anti-virus company in Medina, Ohio. Sundermeier said the worm is spreading fastest in the United States and Europe.

The virus spreads in an e-mail message that looks like it was garbled during its journey to the recipient's in-box. The body text urges recipients to click on the attached file if the contents of the message are damaged or unreadable. The virus launches when the attachment is opened.

Once a user's computer is infected, it is programmed to send large amounts of data to the Web site of the SCO Group, a Lindon, Utah-based company that, in effect, claims ownership over portions of the widely used Linux open-source operating system. SCO is pursuing legal action against IBM Corp. and other companies, asserting that Linux includes portions of the Unix operating system to which it claims copyright ownership. The open-source community disputes SCO's claims on Linux.

The more immediate problem for computers infected with the worm is that they will automatically allow the virus's authors to connect remotely and upload files such as malicious software to forward spam e-mails. The worm also creates a mass-mailing of itself that is expected to clog many corporate e-mail servers or slow down Internet traffic, according to Cupertino, Calif.-based anti-virus software developer Symantec Corp.

Jimmy Kuo, a McAfee research fellow, said the worm has infected systems in several of its largest clients, including banking and telecommunications companies. Kuo declined to name the companies. There is no data available yet on whether Internet traffic is moving more slowly than usual.

FBI officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment on whether law enforcement is investigating the origins of the virus.

The Mydoom virus surfaced one year after the emergence of the "Slammer" worm, which currently holds the title of fastest-spreading network worm. Network worms, unlike e-mail worms, spread through known security holes in operating systems and computer software and do not require users to do anything to be infected or spread the infection.

Computer security experts said Mydoom is spreading rapidly because it uses several layers of "social engineering" -- subtle means of psychological persuasion -- to get people to open the attachment.

Most common e-mail worms and viruses spread when the recipient opens the attached file, starting a program that infects the recipient's computer. The Mydoom worm, however, harbors its payload in a "zip" format, a compressed file that many corporate firewalls and anti-virus programs are designed to let through untouched.

The attached file -- which arrives as an innocuously named file such as "document.zip," "message.zip," or "readme.zip," contains a program that -- when opened -- immediately plants a "backdoor" program that lets the virus writer upload files to the infected machine.

Experts still have not cracked all of Mydoom's encryption code, which may hold clues about what else the worm is supposed to do.

Tony Magallanez, a systems engineer with San Jose, Calif., anti-virus software maker F-Secure Corp., said worm writers often use encryption to buy their creations as much time to spread as possible before experts can figure out what they are doing.

"The basic idea here is trying to make it difficult for the anti-virus researchers to stop whatever the worm is designed to do," Magallanez said.

Mydoom is already being compared to "Sobig.F," a worm that infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, and later installed software that turned them into remotely controlled spamming machines.

Sobig spread at a rapid pace, giving the worm's author unrestricted access to computers infected with the worm.The computers were programmed to visit one of 20 Internet sites to download malicious software. An international team of law enforcement officials and virus hunters found and shut down those host Web sites hours before the infected army of hundreds of thousands of PCs were scheduled to follow their instructions.

Like Sobig, Blaster and most other viruses, Mydoom targets computers running the Windows operating system.


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