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Malware Defense History

by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov.

Copyright: Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov 1994-2013. Unpublished notes. Version 0.80.October, 2013

Contents : Foreword : Ch01 : Ch02 : Ch03  : Ch04 : Ch05 : Ch06 : Ch07 : Ch08 : Ch09 : Ch10 : Ch11 : Ch12 : Ch13


Chapter 6: Mail Worms

The Beagle.K worm sends spoofed messages that threaten to disable user e-mail account

Nikolai N Bezroukov

03/03/2004 03:56 PM

To:  Antivirus_Contacts

Subject: The W32.Beagle.K worm sends spoofed messages from [email protected] threatening to disable user e-mail account

This variant of Beagle worm polished social engineering trick with the password protected ZIP file in a new (actually old, borrowed form another worm) way: emails pretend to come from one of admin accounts and inform the user about some improper action on his/her part and threatens to disable it.

Here is an example of the message (please note that the icon on the left is a globe; that means that email in not internal, but came from the internet; actually we might benefit from replacing it with something less neutral -- many users do not understand the difference ):

 

[email protected]

03/03/2004 11:00 AM

To: Joe User

cc:

Subject: Notify about your e-mail account utilization. VIRUS WARNING: Executable attachment or Mimail/Mydoom/Netsky/Beagle worm ZIP replaced with a dummy file (GW99)

 

Hello user of firma.com e-mail server,

Your e-mail account will be disabled because of improper using in next

three days, if you are still wishing to use it, please, resign your

account information.

Pay attention on attached file.

Attached file protected with the password for security reasons. Password is 07422.

The Management,

The firma.com team http://www.firma.com

- Readme.zip

From address is spoofed so that it to appears as though its coming from the one of the following addresses at the BASF domain:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

As of 3:30 pm I blocked those addresses on the gateway so we should be OK from that time.

Subject: (One of the following lines)

E-mail account disabling warning.

E-mail account security warning.

Email account utilization warning.

Important notify about your e-mail account.

Notify about using the e-mail account.

Notify about your e-mail account utilization.

Warning about your e-mail account.

The text of the message ius randomly generated but contains phrases that might prompt a user to open the attachment:

Message: (One of the following lines)

Dear user of <domain>,

Dear user of <domain> gateway e-mail server,

Dear user of e-mail server "<domain>",

Hello user of <domain> e-mail server,

Dear user of "<domain>" mailing system,

Dear user, the management of <domain> mailing system wants to let you know that,

Followed by one of the following paragraphs:

Your e-mail account has been temporary disabled because of unauthorized access.

Our main mailing server will be temporary unavaible for next two days,

to continue receiving mail in these days you have to configure our free

auto-forwarding service.

Your e-mail account will be disabled because of improper using in next

three days, if you are still wishing to use it, please, resign your

account information.

We warn you about some attacks on your e-mail account. Your computer may

contain viruses, in order to keep your computer and e-mail account safe,

please, follow the instructions.

Our antivirus software has detected a large ammount of viruses outgoing

from your email account, you may use our free anti-virus tool to clean up

your computer software.

Some of our clients complained about the spam (negative e-mail content)

outgoing from your e-mail account. Probably, you have been infected by

a proxy-relay trojan server. In order to keep your computer safe,

follow the instructions.

 

Followed by one of the following lines:

For more information see the attached file.

Further details can be obtained from attached file.

Advanced details can be found in attached file.

For details see the attach.

For details see the attached file.

For further details see the attach.

Please, read the attach for further details.

Pay attention on attached file.

 

Followed by:

The <domain> team http://www.<domain>

Followed by one of the following lines:

The Management,

Sincerely,

Best wishes,

Have a good day,

Cheers,

Kind regards,

If the attachment is a zip file, the message will include one of the following lines:

For security reasons attached file is password protected. The password is "<password>".

For security purposes the attached file is password protected. Password is "<password>".

Attached file protected with the password for security reasons. Password is <password>.

In order to read the attach you have to use the following password: <password>.

Attachment is a zip file that contains a randomly named .exe file. The zip file is password-protected.


Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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