nettime's_basic_visual_script on Sun, 7 May 2000 19:20:13 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> tough love digest


Pit Schultz <pit@icf.de>
     cure from loveletter virus
"Claire Walsh" <clairew@nildram.co.uk>
     Item from Need to Know, London, 5 May 2000
t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
     pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu: [RRE]notes and recommendations [abridged]

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Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 20:55:12 +0200
From: Pit Schultz <pit@icf.de>
Subject: cure from loveletter virus

19:49 04.05.00 Berlin

where have all the jpges gone? it started in the phillipines and
spread exponentially, all kinds of agencies who use outlook
spread the virus into the businessworld, pentagon e-mail was
shut down etc.

the following .exe seems to work properly. shut down other
running applications before. did somebody say backup? 


all best
/pit

----

from: alt.virus

Here's the Beta cure:
http://getvirushelp.com/ILoveYou/iloveyoucleaner.exe
 
I'm planning on adding a couple features when I get a chance, but I've been
successful
 in using this to clean machines.
 
Craig Schmugar
craig@getvirushelp.om
http://www.getvirushelp.com


----

Hi,
 
I have to go to sleep now. It is getting late over here in Taiwan and I
have been looking for a cure for the love-letter-for-you virus. I hope
there is cure before I wake up in the morning. I do not have any of the
major anti-virus programs so even if there is a cure that can cure the love
virus, I couldn't update the definition files to fix it. I am hoping there
is something not related to any specific Anti-virus company that I can put
on a floppy and install on the infected PC to fix this. Or I can manually
fix it. I saw one fix to change the
registry delete the culprit and then delete every file that is 11k and has
a .vbs extension. I am hoping there is an easier fix as i checked the
infected Pc and there about 200 files that match that description mostly
jpegs and gifs.
 
Any help would be appreciated. I want our little company to be
productive tomorrow.
 
Cheers.
 
Steve Smith
Taipei, Taiwan
 


----

We're clean.
In an office of 30, 10 were infected.  Followed the instructions by Robin
Sayer (and the follow ups) and we're clean.  The server is no longer under
severe strain (it's better than ever, in
fact) and everyone is happy.
 
Have to edit the registry, but nothing too serious - don't be
afraid of it.
 
So either find the thread **LOVELETTER VIRUS ALERT** on this
newsgroup, or go to
 
www.remarq.com/read/compvirs/q_5GXeCMH9P0C_DzU
 
which has that thread.
 
It works.  Although you do lose the files that have been
corrupted, what more can I say?
(Except, I'll never forget the joy as the processor usage on our server
dropped from 100% when the virus was at it's max to a
more civilised 10% after I'd cleaned it all)
 
Big thanks to Robin Sayer.


----
Hi there,
Who has info on a new virus sweeping South Africa. The virus is called "I
love you" , or "Love Letter". It is a .vbs file and works by replicating
itself and mailing to everyone in your address book. I think that is fairly
new as there is info on the web, I think.
 
Thanks, keep cool guys !

---

It's currently following the timezones west.... Europe has been hit pretty
bad. www.datafellows.com has Infos on it.

----


Hey,
Here it's hit the west coast.  If you don't know how to read VB to find out
the files it's using here are the paths and files:
 
Files created:
MSKernel32.vbs
Win32DLL.vbs
Love-Letter-for-you.txt.vbs
 
Registry Settings needed to be deleted:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\MSKerne
l32",dirsystem&"\MSKernel32.vbs
 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
\Win32DLL",dirwin&"\Win32DLL.vbs
 
fifedog
 
 
-----


Check task manager & end wscript.exe & outlook.exe if they're running
Delete all .VBS files created today  (Do findfiles *.vbs - all files
created or modified today)
Remember to specify 'all-drives'  - you will have lost all your
jpg's,mp3,mp2,css & some others on local drives & shares. 
 
Delete ROOT\WINNT\SYSTEM32\LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.HTM
 
Delete;
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\MSKern
el32 MSKernel32.vbs"
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunService
s\Win32DLL Win32DLL.vbs"
 
Set default internet explorer location back to what it normally is.
(www.msn.com by default)
Then check;
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
to make sure the change has taken ok.
 
Check & delete if exists;
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\WIN-
BUGSFIX",downread&"\WIN-BUGSFIX.exe"
Search all drives for win-bugsfix.exe & delete
 
Check
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\"
Against your address book to see who you have posted to.
 
No great harm done unless you depend on your jpg's - don't run mail
attachments on MC PC's in future.
 

----

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From: "Claire Walsh" <clairew@nildram.co.uk>
Subject: Item from Need to Know, London, 5 May 2000
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 21:09:50 +0100

Hello: I hope this format is Ok for Nettime.

"HARD NEWS: we love you too.

And who do we love? We love the journalists who, despite having the =
source of the ILOVEYOU virus repeatedly delivered to them as an =
attachment, said that it could 'steal your bank details' (Channel 5) and =
that it affected Macintoshes (BBC News Online) but not users of the =
'Lycos operating system' (The Times. We loved NETWORK ASSOCIATES boast =
that they 'believed [it] to have orignated in Manila' and 'We have the =
name of who we think it is but we're not saying' (amazing detective =
work, given that the handle and location of the author is in the first =
line of the script). We loved that one of the first propagators in the =
UK was McAfee's PR company. We loved watching MoneyFacts send it to =
their entire mailing list, then apologise using a cc: list of their =
subscribers. We loved it when mail gateways led to it being sent by fax =
and SMS. And we loved it when Microsoft pretended that it had nothing to =
do with their lousy security provision in Outlook and Windows =
Scripting."

>From NTN now *the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the UK =
http://www.ntk.net.

Regards

Claire Walsh

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Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 11:58:44 -0400
From: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
Subject: pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu: [RRE]notes and recommendations

date: Fri, 5 May 2000 17:44:10 -0700 (PDT)
from: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
to: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
subject: [RRE]notes and recommendations [abridged]

Some notes on Microsoft viruses <...>


I received about 60 copies of the latest Microsoft e-mail virus and
its variants.  How many did you get?  Fortunately I manage my e-mail
with Berkeley mailx and Emacs keyboard macros, so I wasn't at risk.
But if we're talking about billions of dollars in damage, which
equates roughly to millions of lost work days, then I think that we
and Microsoft need to have a little talk.

Reading the press reports, Microsoft's stance toward this situation
has been disgraceful.  Most of their sound bites have been sophistry
designed to disassociate the company from any responsibility for
the problem.  One version goes like this quote from Scott Culp of
Microsoft Public Relations, excuse me, I mean Microsoft Security
Response Center:

  This is a general issue, not a Microsoft issue.  You can write a
  virus for any platform.  (New York Times 5/5/00)

Notice the public relations technology at work here: defocusing the
issue so as to move attention away from the specific vulnerabilities
of Microsoft's applications architecture and toward the fuzzy concept
of "a virus".  Technologists will understand the problem here, but
most normal people will not.  Mr. Culp also says this (CNET 5/5/00):

  This is by-design behavior, not a security vulnerability.

More odd language.  It's like saying, "This is a rock, not something
that can fall to the ground".  It's confusing to even think about it.
Even though Microsoft had been specifically informed of the security
vulnerability in its software, it had refused to fix it.  Microsoft
even tried to blame its problem on Netscape, which *had* fixed it:

  http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1820959.html

The next step is to blame the users.  The same Mr. Culp read on the
radio the text of a warning that the users who spread the virus had
supposedly ignored.  That warning concludes with a statement to the
effect that you shouldn't execute attachments from sources that you
do not trust.  He read that part kind of fast, as you might expect,
given that the whole point of this virus is that people receive an
attachment from a person who has included them in their address book.
This particular blame-shifting tactic is particularly disingenuous
given that the virus spread rapidly through Microsoft itself, to the
point that the company had to block all incoming e-mail (Wall Street
Journal 5/5/00).

Similarly, CNET (5/4/00) quoted an unnamed "Microsoft representative"
as saying that companies must educate employees "not to run a program
from an origin you don't trust".  Notice the nicely ambiguous word
"origin".  The virus arrives in your mailbox clearly labeled as having
been sent by a particular individual with whom you probably have an
established relationship.  It bears no other signs of its "origin"
that an ordinary user will be able to parse, short of executing the
attachment.

So what on earth is Microsoft doing allowing attachments to run code
in a full-blown scripting language that can, among many other things,
invisibly send e-mail?  Says the "Microsoft representative",

  We include scripting technologies because our customers ask us to
  put them there, and they allow the development of business-critical
  productivity applications that millions of our customers use.

There needs to be a moratorium on expressions such as "customers ask
us to".  Does that mean all of the customers?  Or just some of them?
Notice the some/all ambiguity that is another core technology of
public relations.  Do these "customers" really specifically asked for
fully general scripts that attachments can execute, or do they only
ask for certain features that can be implemented in many ways, some
of which involve attachments that execute scripts?  Do the customers
who supposedly ask for these crazy things understand the consequences
of them?  Do they ask for them to be turned on by default, so that
every customer in the world gets the downside of them so that a few
customers can more conveniently get the upside?  And notice how the
"Microsoft representative" defocuses the issue again, shifting from
the specific issue of scripts that can be executed by attachments
to the fuzzy concept of "scripting technologies", as if anybody were
suggesting that scripting technologies, as such, in general, were to
blame.

Microsoft shouldn't be broken up.  It should be shut down.

 <...>

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