Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - [internetworkers] TheReg on Google killing virus (myDoom)

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Paul Jones <pjones AT metalab.unc.edu>
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [internetworkers] TheReg on Google killing virus (myDoom)
  • Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 08:37:08 -0400 (EDT)

Original URL:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/27/google_bashing_virus/
We're all MyDoomed
By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 27th July 2004 11:41 GMT

A computer virus which affected the operation of Google yesterday is
spreading like wildfire.

MyDoom-M
(http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.mydoom.m AT mm.html)

(AKA MyDoom-O) has adopted a new trick of using search engines to find
email addresses to target for infection. The worm queries
search.lycos.com, search.yahoo.com, AltaVista, and Google in its attempts
to harvest additional email addresses for possible distribution. Google
blamed the virus after some users complained of search results turning up
nothing but error messages.

User reports of problems with Google - along with problems accessing MSDN,
Microsoft.com and Hotmail - poured into The Register yesterday afternoon.
Netcraft, the Net monitoring firm, said it had noticed no performance
problems with Microsoft.com and our inquiries to Akamai, which runs the
content distribution network used by many Microsoft sites, also drew a
blank. Microsoft said the worm did not affect its sites directly but may
have affected the ability of some of its users to reach those sites.

Alex Shipp of email security firm MessageLabs, said early analysis of the
worm has revealed nothing to suggest it targeted Microsoft sites directly.
However, the volume of traffic generated by the worm may have downgraded
system performance for many people, causing the problems observed by many
of you.

MessageLabs blocked 23,000 copies of MyDoom-O within the first five hours
of the worm's outbreak yesterday morning. Today anti-virus firm Symantec
has upgraded the worm to a Level 4 threat (Level 5 is the most severe) due
to increased submission rates.
Beware bogus security warning

Mydoom-O is a mass-mailing worm that opens a back door - Zincite-A - on
port 1034/TCP of compromised PCs. This gives attackers remote,
unauthorised access to infected PCs. MyDoom-O spreads aggressively through
email, using its own SMTP engine. This mass mailing may clog mail servers
and downgrade system performance.

The worm sends emails to addresses harvested from infected PCs as well as
to email addresses it finds through search engines. The sender's From:
email address is invariably forged, and therefore does not indicate the
true identity of the sender. The subject and body of infected messages
vary, but normally refer to bogus security warnings ostensibly from a
user's own administrator. This social engineering ruse, although by no
means new, helps explain MyDoom-O's wildfire spread.

Standard precautions apply to defending against the bug: update AV
signature files and (if you're an admin) consider introducing controls to
block executables at the gateway. If you're a regular user, be careful of
those unsolicited attachments, even from people you know. As usual,
MyDoom-O is a Windows-only menace. But security-conscious PC, Linux or Mac
users are not wholly immune though, thanks to the blizzard of bounced and
redirected messages generated as a result of MyDoom's spoofing behaviour.
®

==========================================================================
Paul Jones
"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray
http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/
pjones AT ibiblio.org voice: (919) 962-7600 fax: (919) 962-8071
===========================================================================




  • [internetworkers] TheReg on Google killing virus (myDoom), Paul Jones, 07/27/2004

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page