Re: Fwd: [Aebc] Virus/Trojan targets blind computer users

  • From: "Peter" <peterholdstock@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:38:38 -0000

I don't remember that at all. I just remember the fuss about the 519 release which every one said was fake. Personally I woudlnt' have downloaded it, but it did emerge that this build was genuine and the build to rectify the issue around the CD create.


Peter

--------------------------------------------------
From: "RAWest" <rawest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 7:26 PM
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Fwd: [Aebc] Virus/Trojan targets blind computer users

On December 3, 2007 there were email sent out to members of the jaws lite
news group, and the jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx groups

Could have been other but these are 2 that I know of.

This email provided a link to a jaws authorization crack for versions 8 and
9.

Since FS does not email updates it should have been treated with caution.

some on both lists went and installed it and Ridiculed others for condemning
it's validity.

So I guess now the chicken has come home to roost.

Always use the Jaws update tool to get updates from FS

Robert


-----Original Message-----
From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Peter
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:16 PM
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Fwd: [Aebc] Virus/Trojan targets blind computer users

I don't remember this running wild on the list. What was it, what was the
subject heading in case I've done anything to get it on here.

Peter

--------------------------------------------------
From: "James Homuth" <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 4:33 PM
To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Fwd: [Aebc] Virus/Trojan targets blind computer users

Since this was running wild on the JFW list a few weeks back, I
thought it worthwhile to share that yes, there is a fix for it and
yes, it is being looked at by more than just the blind/visually impaired
community.

James,
List Admin
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http://www.sophos.com:80/security/blog/2008/01/998.html

17 January 2008 16:29 GMT

Blind computer users struck by a very unusual Trojan attack While I
was investigating reports of the Troj/Mbroot-A Master Boot Record
rootkit I decided to follow up on a suggestion seen on a mailing list.
It was suggested that an incident described on ZoneBBS forum may be
related to the MBR trojan I was initially looking for.

The thread contains a number of posts submitted by several very
distressed forum members. According to their reports, they have been
unable to use their Windows computers since Boxing Day. The news
itself would not be very interesting if the forum members complaining
about these incidents were not blind. Their computers were rendered
unusable because the software used to read the screen text and convert
it to speech suddenly stopped working. An interesting thing was that
not all users were using the same screen reader software.

I was quite keen to help, but the users had already managed to
pinpoint the culprit. It was a fake crack for JAWS 9.0 screen reader
software, one of the most popular screen readers. Allegedly, the crack
did not just patch the JAWS executables to allow them to run without a
legitimate licence, but it also installed a Trojan targeting JAWS and
other popular screen readers.

Thanks to Ryan Smith, a developer of accessible games who also created
a tool to help the users prevent the Trojan, I have managed to get the
offending file. When I run it through our automated analysis system I
could immediately see that the patch installs more than one would hope
for. Three additional files were installed, two executables -
mci32.exe in Windows and svchost.exe in the Windows\Config folder.
Furthermore, there was a DLL named securityService.dll in the System
folder. Suspicious registry activity triggered the detection in the
HIPS portion of Sophos Anti-Virus 7.



The dropped DLL was also registered with Winlogon process so that the
malicious code was loaded early during the logon process.

I started the disassembly with interest. It soon became clear that
this was a very unusual and well-executed attack targeting blind
people. The attention to detail and the programming style implies that
the attacker was skilled, possibly a professional programmer.

As with some other advanced malware, the Trojan processes are
protected by each other. The securityService.dll is protecting
svchost.exe so it can not be terminated using standard tools such as
Task Manager and svchost shields mci32.exe from deletion. This is a
protection chain similar to the one seen in some earlier variants of
Troj/Zlob. Furthermore, the securityService.dll registered a handler
function which will get notified if the Registry key
"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\securityService" is changed and restore
its previous values.

In other words, the removal of this beast is quite difficult, even if
the person cleaning up the system was not blind. The best thing would
be to reboot the system from a clean bootable media and remove all
offending files, but that may be out of the question since the
accessibility features in most Linux bootable CD distributions are not
very good. The next best thing is to install an anti-virus software
that can remove the Trojan. Sophos Anti-Virus 7 detects it as
Troj/KillJWS-A and it can successfully remove the Trojan.

Next thing I wanted to check was the payload. If the discussion on
ZoneBBS was correct, the Trojan would prevent screen readers from
working on 26 December 2007. I started looking for the time comparison
and it did not take too long to find this code snippet:



The payload trigger time is compared with the current system time
converted to the number of seconds expired since 1 January 1970. When
converted to system time, the long value used for comparison is
exactly 26 December 2007 at 0:00 and the payload will be launched if
the current system time is later than the trigger time. The payload is
relatively simple. The payload function enumerates all processes and
compares the names of the running processes with a list of processes
containing several well known text-to-speech programs such as Jaws,
Windows Eyes, Microsoft Narrator, HAL Screen Reader and Kurzweil.

Overall, this attack left me questioning the attacker's morality as it
is really difficult to imagine what would be the motivation for an
attack like this one. The attack does not seem to be financially
motivated, although one may think that the intention was to "punish"
people using illegal copies of JAWS software. All this makes me think
that long prison sentences for malware writers conducting attacks such
as this one are not harsh as I used to believe.

Vanja Svajcer, SophosLabs, UK

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