Chaos Digest Mercredi 19 Mai 1993 Volume 1 : Numero 27 ISSN 1244-4901 Editeur: Jean-Bernard Condat (jbcondat@attmail.com) Archiviste: Yves-Marie Crabbe Co-Redacteurs: Arnaud Bigare, Stephane Briere TABLE DES MATIERES, #1.27 (19 Mai 1993) File 1--40H VMag Issue 1 Volume 2 #000-5(1) (reprint) Chaos Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost by sending a message to: linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi with a mail header or first line containing the following informations: X-Mn-Admin: join CHAOS_DIGEST The editors may be contacted by voice (+33 1 47874083), fax (+33 1 47877070) or S-mail at: Jean-Bernard Condat, Chaos Computer Club France [CCCF], B.P. 155, 93404 St-Ouen Cedex, France. He is a member of the EICAR and EFF (#1299) groups. Issues of ChaosD can also be found on some French BBS. Back issues of ChaosD can be found on the Internet as part of the Computer underground Digest archives. They're accessible using anonymous FTP from: * kragar.eff.org [192.88.144.4] in /pub/cud/chaos * uglymouse.css.itd.umich.edu [141.211.182.53] in /pub/CuD/chaos * halcyon.com [192.135.191.2] in /pub/mirror/cud/chaos * ftp.cic.net [192.131.22.2] in /e-serials/alphabetic/c/chaos-digest * ftp.ee.mu.oz.au [128.250.77.2] in /pub/text/CuD/chaos * nic.funet.fi [128.214.6.100] in /pub/doc/cud/chaos * orchid.csv.warwick.ac.uk [137.205.192.5] in /pub/cud/chaos CHAOS DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing French information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of diverse views. ChaosD material may be reprinted for non-profit as long as the source is cited. Some authors do copyright their material, and they should be contacted for reprint permission. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned articles in French, English or German languages relating to computer culture and telecommunications. Articles are preferred to short responses. Please avoid quoting previous posts unless absolutely necessary. DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Chaos Digest contributors assume all responsibility for ensuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue May 11 09:24:40 PDT 1993 From: 0005847161@mcimail.com (American_Eagle_Publication_Inc. ) Subject: File 1--40H VMag Issue 1 Volume 2 #000-5(1) (reprint) 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0000 001...........................How to sneak infected files into past SCAN 002...........................The safe way to play with viruses. 003...........................Theory Dept. Viruses Slow vs. Fast. 004...........................Interview of the month: Skism One. 005...........................Artical on The Dark Avenger. 006...........................The mother of all viruses - WHALE! 007...........................And now a word from a real dick. 008...........................The Ontario Virus. 009...........................The 1260 Virus. 010...........................The Skism 808 source code. 011...........................Vienna/Violator source code. 40Hex Staff Hellraiser....................Editor/Programming Consultant ETC... Nick Haflinger -=PHALCON=-....CO-Editor/Writer/Theory Consultant Skism One.....................Virus supply/Co-Programming Consultant The Punisher (Brooklyn).......Virus supply Garbage Heap..................Main Virus Supply/Overseer Spell Checker.................Obvoiusly there is none Call the 40HEX/SKISM Homebase ----- The Landfill BBS (914)-HAK-VMBS Sysop Garbage Heap. Home of -=PHALCON=- 40Hex wants YOU - The write articles for this mag. Lets make it world wide! Send any articles to the 40Hex HQ - The Landfill BBS! Special shout out to - Sub-Zero (the hard core group), DC Wave, all the kids at school. +++++ 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0001 - HOW TO GET INFECTED FILES INTO LAME BBS's - Ok, one problem with sending infected files to BBS's is that you never can tell if they will be detected by SCAN. Or if you are sending bombs the sysop might use CHK4BOMB to detect code that is data damaging. I'm gonna tell you how to get around this, what you need is the following- PKLITE or LZEXE and A good hex editor What you do is this, compress the infected file with Pklite or Lzexe. This will make change the files checksum and ID strings quite a bit so it can't be detected by SCAN and damaging data will not be found by CHK4BOMB. The problem is that now the sysop can use CHK4LITE to detect is the file is indeed infected. So what you do is this -- Load up the hex editior - Now look at the file, it will look something like this if you compressed it with PKLITE. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0000 4D 5A 12 01 13 00 00 00-07 00 98 05 4A A4 52 02 MZJR 0010 00 04 00 00 00 01 F0 FF-50 00 00 00 03 01 50 4B PPK 0020 4C 49 54 45 20 43 6F 70-72 2E 20 31 39 39 30 20 LITE Copr. 1990 0030 50 4B 57 41 52 45 20 49-6E 63 2E 20 41 6C 6C 20 PKWARE Inc. All 0040 52 69 67 68 74 73 20 52-65 73 65 72 76 65 64 00 Rights Reserved 0050 0A 00 20 00 17 01 48 00-4A 04 4A A4 E2 03 00 40 HJJ@ 0060 00 00 56 11 00 00 1C 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 V 0070 B8 E3 07 BA 4B 02 8C DB-03 D8 3B 1E 02 00 73 1D K;s 0080 83 EB 20 FA 8E D3 BC 00-02 FB 83 EB 19 8E C3 53 S 0090 B9 C3 00 33 FF 57 BE 48-01 FC F3 A5 CB B4 09 BA 3WH 00A0 36 01 CD 21 CD 20 4E 6F-74 20 65 6E 6F 75 67 68 6! Not enough 00B0 20 6D 65 6D 6F 72 79 24-FD 8C DB 53 83 C3 2D 03 memory$S- 00C0 DA BE FE FF 8B FE 8C CD-8B C5 2B EA 8B CA D1 E1 + ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You see the header? Well what you have to do is overwrite the header with garbage. Don't write text cause that is to dectectable by a dump program. Just overwrite the part that says "PKLITE corp....Reserved" with hex bytes. Also distroy the part of the code that says "Not enough memory", dont kill the "$" symbol. This will make the compressed file- A> Undetectable to virus scanners, and CHK4BOMB type programs B> Un-Decompressable C> CHK4LITE wont notice it as a PKLITE file It's that easy! Keep in mind however than any file that the virus infects will no longer be encrypted by PKLITE, so this method is good only on getting your virus into the front door. See the article in issue one on making new virus strains. Forenote After writing this article SCAN Version 80 came out, It now has the ability to scan into Pklite compressed files. Just to let you know that this teqnique still works and SCAN cannot detect the file as being compressed as PKLITE. HR +++++ 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0002 THE SAFE WAY TO EXPERIMENT WITH VIRUSES The problem with fooling around with viruses is that you never know what damage there going to do to your hard disk. I have a couple of so called viruses that when run, automatically screw up the FAT on all the disks in the system. Well, theres a way around getting the shaft from these programs, and also to experiment with legitament viruses. The key is the DOS utitlity SUBST, make this batch file, and copy it to a floppy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- @echo off subst d: a:\ subst c: a:\ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What this will do is send any access to disks C: and D: (the two hard disks in my case) to drive A: So the only damage inflicted will be to the floppy in A: No programs can access you hard disk when this command is issued. I use it all the time and as of now it has proved 100% safe. Oh yeah, if you dont feel like distroying a floppy every time you mess with a virus, you can do this teqnique from a RAM disk. Have fun... HR +++++ 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0003 Virus Spreading - Fast Or Slow? By Nick Haflinger -=PHALCON=- Call The LandFill BBS (914) Hak-Vmbs -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- One of the questions while writing your virus is how quickly you want it to spread. The easy answer is "As fast as possible" but this is not always the best answer. If a virus moves slowly, it will take much longer before somebody notices hard drive space disappearing, he/she will notice fewer changes to the file dates, and all other symptoms will be lessened. However, this does provide longer for anti-virus people (pronounced Scum, with a capital S) to discover the virus. This issue ties directly into the issue of activation, short or long. Since the issues are virtually identical, I will cover both together, because they are so closely tied. The Case For Fast +++++++++++++++++ Viri should spread as quickly as possible. This allows as little time as possible for the makers of antivirus programs to come up with an antidote before the virus is widely spread. This should be tied with a short activation period to cause as many problems as possible before detection is possible. Because fewer copies are generated before activation, each copy may be larger. This allows for more extensive anti-anti-viral tactics, which are becoming increasingly more important as the number of anti-viral products rises. Just remember, most of these products are shit. So don't worry too much. The Case For Slow +++++++++++++++++ Viri should spread slowly, because this is less obtrusive, and therefore users are less likely to notice a change in the system. This should be coupled with a long activation period as to have maximum penetration before the virus activates. A slow-spreading virus will circulate to more virus programmers who will be able to modify the program for specific needs or to adapt to antiviral tactics. On a purely academic note, slow spreading viri must be smaller, as more copies must be generated. This means that viri must be programmed better, which is good for the general community. The Case Against Fast +++++++++++++++++++++ Fast spreading of viri is likely to draw attention. Once a virus has been caught, in most of the cases, it is dead and useless. A virus should infect the greatest area in the shortest time before the anti-virus people inevitably catch up to the virus. However, because of the necessity of a short activation time, this virus has a lesser range than a slow- spreading virus. The programmer must rely on either (a) the quick distribution of the virus along at least a regional level --or-- (b) the ability of other virus programmers to obtain and modify either the source code or dissassemble and modify the distributed virus. If possible, the source should be distributed along trusted channels. There should be as little chance as possible of an antiviral researcher obtaining a copy of the sourse for your masterpiece. The Case Against Slow +++++++++++++++++++++ A slow spreading virus is much more likely to get caught by antiviral people prior to its necessarily long pre-activation period. There will be more defenses out against the virus before it has spread much. However, if the virus is well-done, it will have spread far before it is caught. Conclusion ++++++++++ Actually, I lied. There is no conclusion to be drawn from this, as this is in itself the conclusion of long hours of thought and much brainstorming on BBSs. If you would like to comment, I can be reached on LandFill BBS, phone number above. In a future article, I will attempt to cover anti-anti-virus tactics. I may also respond to some important questions/comments I may receive. Start your viri now! And may the best bug win! NH +++++ 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0004 Interview with Skism One - AKA Lord SSS (triple S) This interview was taken by Hellraiser on July 7, 1991 in Washington Square Park, Manhatten. HR: So what got you started in the virus business? SSS: Well, I used to write graffiti all over and that got sort of played out, so I needed something else distructive to do. So I started getting into computers, then the next thing you know I'm writing viruses. HR: What was you first experence with viruses? SSS: Well the first time I heard of them was when that dickhead got arrested for putting the worm... HR: You mean Morris? SSS: Yeah that asshole, it was on the news and all that - so I got to thinking, that would be a cool thing to do. HR: What was the first virus you ran across? SSS: Ha... Some dick gave me a copy of (pause) it think it was Norton 4.0 when it first came out. So I took it home and put it on my hard drive. The next thing you know all this weird shit starts going on. Like programs won't run and this little box opens up on the bottom of my screen all of a sudden. So I get a copy of SCAN, then I find out almost all my files are infected with Jerusalem. HR: What did you do? SSS: Well I re-formatted the drive and examined the copy of Jeru for months. Then one day I used a Hex editor to change the suMSDOs string to SKISM-1. Then I went to all the computers I could find and infected them. The next thing you know my friend shows me this list with my name on it. It was Patti Hoffmans document. Shit, I thought I was the man back then. HR: Then what? SSS: Then - well I got into assembler and dissasembly and I started to learn how to modify the code and all that. The next thing you know I had made my own virus from the scraps of Jeru. HR: Captian Trips, right? SSS: Yeah, sort of. Then someone I know sent it to all the boards in town under a trojan name and fucked a lot of peoples shit up. Oh well. Then I guess I grew out of the scavenger mode and started writting my own shit, from scratch. HR: Like what? SSS: Well they were all called Skism so and so, like Skism 10, Skism 11 and all that. Then I meet people and they started helping me out and now we got this thing going on. HR: You mean Smart Kids Into Sick Methods? SSS: Yeah, you know all thid did did dat. HR: How do you name your viruses? SSS: Well depends whats on my mind. Skism was my tag for like four years, so I thought it would be cool if people saw my name in the newspaper and all that. I got Captian Trips after reading The Stand, by Stephen King. 1992 was just what I named it cause the virus came out to be about 1945 bytes so I jusy padded it out to next years date. 808 was named after the TR-808, a 'drum machine' used in hip-hop. HR: Whats the latest projects? SSS: You know, you wrote most of the shit. HR: Tell them. The people. SSS: Well, we did SKISM 1992, which was funny, then a member of SKISM, who shall be nameless made 808. Now I'm just taking a break from viruses and computers for the summer. HR: You stopped? SSS: Your crazy, nah - It's got to wait a while, then I'll get back into it - when school starts again. HR: What do you think of McAffe? SSS: He's cool, what the fuck am supposed to say. He does a good job at spreading my name around. I really like Pat Hoffman, thanks for the write ups. You got to understand - these people make us into infamous villians. I can deal with that. HR: Do you mind them detecting your viruses? SSS: Nah, fuck it - If my shit can make it from NY to California without effort, it shows it works. Thats it. Thers a lot more where that came from. One more thing, I hate that gay bitch Ross Greenburg author of Flu-Shot. What a dick. He's just an asshole tring to sell his shit product. He's got a big mouth and instead of crashing his board, I'd like to kick his fucken ass. Where's his office? Up one 57th right? Lets take a walk. Just kiddin' but the guys product sucks and he's just a greedy asshole. I'm glad I sent a trojan version of his virus scanner around. Ha you dick! HR: What virus authors do you look up to? SSS: Myself - Ha Ha (laughter) Ha Ha. No, I love Whale - that was clever. I like Dark Avenger, the real one. Its hard to be original, and these guys were. Hats off you crazy fuckin' Bulgarian Metal-Head! HR: What about groups of virus writers? SSS: I think were the only one. Oh yeah and those Rabid people you told me about, yeah there just like us - people tring to make there mark in the world, or should I say dent in the world. Germans are bugging out too - Shit, they write half the shit out there these days. More power to them HR: What is your advise to people who want to write viruses? SSS: Get a late pass! No as I said more power to you. Just remember you got to have style and learn to be ORIGINAL. HR: What next from you? SSS: I don't really know. I'm waiting to hook up a few more people to the pack, then we'll get the thing rollin HARD. Till then 'A little at a time...' At the time this artical was finished, the Skism team was at work on a new virus code named Bad Brains. HR +++++ 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0005 The Dark Avenger --- ---- ------- Part I. The Dark Avenger ------------------------- Introduction: The following text file was sent directly to Professor Vesselin Bontchev in a public sent to an anti-viral board located in Sofia, Bulgaria. Bontchev is one of the leading anti-viral researchers in Europe today. A producer of number of effective anti-viral programs in Bulgaria, his programs are widely used throughout Europe. The Dark Avenger is Bulgaria's most dangerous viral code writer and a heavy metal fanatic - as this message concerning himself, written by him (often referring to himself in third person) reveals: +++++ DARK AVENGER ============ DARK AVENGER is the pseudonym used by a particularly prolific and malicious Bulgarian virus writer. It is also the name given in the West to some of his earlier viruses. His viruses include: DARK AVENGER V651, V1800, V2000 and V2100 NUMBER OF THE BEAST aka 512 (several versions) ANTHRAX (Infects both files and boot sectors) V800 and its derivatives: 1226, PROUD, EVIL & PHOENIX Some other viruses, e.g. NOMENKLATURA & DIAMOND are in his style but are believed to be the work of others. MURPHY has been strongly influenced by him but is known to be of different authorship. CRAZY EDDIE may also be his. Several 'hacks' are now appearing of V1800, V2100, MURPHY and DIAMOND. Eddie is the mascot of the British heavy metal group, Iron Maiden (hence 'up the irons'). It is a 20 foot high skeleton that appears on stage with them and is featured on the sleeves of all their albums. Anthrax and Damage Inc are other heavy metal groups whose names have been featured in some Dark Avenger viruses. Iron Maiden numbers have also been mentioned including 'Somewhere in Time', 'Only the Good Die Young' and 'Number of the Beast'. Unusually, this virus writer has also produced a virus removal program together with a version log of his EDDIE series, as reproduced below with its original spelling and grammar. "DOCTOR QUICK! Virus Doctor for the Eddie Virus Version 2.01 10-31-89 Copyright (c) 1988-89 Dark Avenger. All rights reserved. DOCTOR /? for help It may be of interest to you to know that Eddie (also known as "Dark Avenger") is the most widespread virus in Bulgaria for the time being. However I have information that Eddie is well known in the USA, West Germany and USSR too. I started in writing the virus in early September 1988. In those times there were no any viruses in Bulgaria, so I decided to write the first Bulgarian virus. There were some different Eddie's versions: VERSION 1.1, 16-DEC-1988 In December I've decided to enhance the virus. This version could infect files during their opening. For that reason, a read buffer was allocated in high end of memory, rather than using DOS function 48h when needed. The disk was destroyed instead of the infected files. VERSION 1.2, 19-DEC-1988 This added a new feature that causes (for example) compiled programs to be infected at once if the virus is resident. Also, the "Eddie lives..." message was added (can you guess why exactly "Eddie"?) VERSION 1.31, 3-JAN-1989 This became the most common version of Eddie. A code was added to find the INT 13 rom-vector on many popular XT's and AT's. Also, other messages were added so its length would be exactly 1800 bytes. There was a subsequent, 1.32 version (19-JAN-1989), which added self-checksum and other interesting features that was abandoned because it was extremely buggy. In early March 1989 version 1.31 was called into existence and started to live its own life to all engineers' and other suckers' terror. And, the last VERSION 1.4, 17-OCT-1989 This was a bugfix for version 1.31, and added some interesting new features. Support has been added for DOS 2.x and DOS 4.x. For further information about this (the most terrible) version, and to learn how to find out a program author by its code, or why virus-writers are still not dead, contact Mr. Vesselin Bontchev (All Rights Reserved). So, never say die! Eddie lives on and on and on... Up the irons!" NOTE: Vesselin Bontchev, who the Dark Avenger is trying to discredit, is a leading virus researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. +++++ Post Note: There is a rumor concerning the fact that RABID now has the Dark Avenger on their staff of virus writers, and that the new Dark Avenger variant released by them was, in fact, written by him. This has yet to be proven. The more acceptable belief concerning this new strain is that RABID simply picked up the source code for Dark Avenger, released last December, and modified it. Part II - Dark Avenger - Strain A --------------------------------- Vesselin Bontchev reports in May 1990: The Dark Avenger virus. ====================== - I found two new mutations of this virus. Well, maybe "mutations" is not the correct word. In the first of them, the first 16 characters of the string "Eddie lives... somewhere in time!" were replaced with blanks. In the second example, all strings (the message above, the copyright message and the "Diana P." string) were replaced with blanks. - The author of the Dark Avenger virus (The bastard! I still cannot determine who he is.) has released the source code of his virus. It is full with ironic comments about me. Of course, now we have to expect lots of new, similar viruses to appear. At least, this leaded to one good thing - the source helped me very much in disassembling the V2000 virus. - I received a rather offensive anonymous letter from this person. In it he claims to be also the author of both the V2000 (I trust this) and the Number of the Beast viruses (the latter is unlikely). [See Above] Information About the Dark Avenger Virus, courtesy of "Virus Bulletin Ltd," Buckinghamshire, England. Note: This information is far more valuable than the standard Virus Summary by Patricia Hoffman. Her entry concerning DA fails to go into more depth about the Dark Avenger virus and apparently she has yet to receive information of the different versions of DA. Such information is already a year old, but she has yet to include it. Entry...............: Dark Avenger Alias(es)...........: --- Virus Strain........: Dark Avenger Virus detected when.: November 1989 where.: USA Classification......: February 1990 Length of Virus.....: about 1800 Bytes --------------------- Preconditions ----------------------------------- Operating System(s).: DOS Version/Release.....: Computer model(s)...: IBM-compatible --------------------- Attributes -------------------------------------- Easy Identification.: Two Texts: "Eddie lives...somewhere in time" at beginning and "This Program was written in the City of Sofia (C) 1988-89 Dark Avenger" near end of file Type of infection...: Link-virus COM-files: appends to the program and installs a short jump EXE-files: appends to the program at the beginning of the next paragraph Infection Trigger...: COM and EXE files are corrupted on any read attempt even when VIEWING!!! Storage media affected: Any Drive Interrupts hooked...: Int 21 DOS-services Int 27 Terminate and Stay Resident Damage..............: Overwrites a random sector with bootblock Damage Trigger......: each 16th infection; counter located in Bootblock Particularities.....: - Similarities........: - --------------------- Agents ------------------------------------------ Countermeasures.....: NONE! All data can be destroyed !!!! There is no way in retrieving lost data. Backups will most probably be destroyed too. Countermeasures successful: install McAfee's SCANRES. Standard means......: Good luck! Hopefully the virus did not destroy too many of your programs and data. --------------------- Acknowledgement --------------------------------- Location............: VTC Uni Hamburg Classification by...: Matthias Jaenichen Documentation by....: Matthias Jaenichen Date................: 31.01.1990 ------------------------------ End of Chaos Digest #1.27 ************************************ Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253