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1 Year Anniversary of Nimda Outbreak

dots and loops writes "Today marks one year to the date that the nimda worm began making its way across the Internet." Hey, speaking of hilarious worms, I'm still getting 5-10 klez virus's a day! Yay Security!

96 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. happy birthday by hikeran · · Score: 2, Funny

    happy birthday to nimda..

    happy birthday to nimda ..

    happy birthday you iis infecting worm...

    happy birthday to you...

    may you make anti virus vendors riiiiiiccchhh

  2. One year, and still.. by molo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Its hard to believe that its been one year and I'm still getting scans on my apache server. Are there really that many braindead admins??

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
    1. Re:One year, and still.. by digitalsushi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But how many of these machines are run by admins? (definition of admin being a professional)

      --
      slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
    2. Re:One year, and still.. by ryanr · · Score: 2

      Nimda also spreads via e-mail, file shares, etc... so it's much more than just machines with administrators that get infected. That's one of the big reasons for Nimda's "success".

    3. Re:One year, and still.. by jsse · · Score: 2

      I'm not kidding, the expectation of an MS admin can be as low as:

      1) Keep the services that should run running(even if it's already owned, as long as nothing is being defaced...)
      2) Keep up to the latest service patches (okay, if it's not the latest, the next latest)
      3) The server will crash and blue occasionally(may be due to some exception in virus), just reboot it, case close.
      3) The server will be mysterically getting slower and slower(due to unhandled Code Red, e.g.). Ask for more rams, extra disk and extra CPU or even a newer server.

      I.e., no need to scan security news, no need to tune the system, no need to perform any housekeeping tasks, no scary log files to be seen....

      I haven't seen one exception of them around so far.

    4. Re:One year, and still.. by N3WBI3 · · Score: 2

      I had to put that in there because even with devellpers you never know ;). I had a developer spill half a bag of domino sugar *INDISE* his computer....

      --
    5. Re:One year, and still.. by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Its hard to believe that its been one year and I'm still getting scans on my apache server. Are there really that many braindead admins??

      Actually, almost all of mine are coming from individual subscribers coming through big DSL-/Cable-based ISP's like RoadRunner, SW Bell, etc. For each incident, I fire off E-Mail to their security departments, giving times, IP's, etc. (I have set of log scanning scripts that generate them automatically. How's that for geekiness? No, you can't have them. They suck. That's high in geek factor, too :-). I've seen NO action taken by them. What a bunch of lamers. Do they really think their customers want to be infected and spew out into the net? The issue is that, really, as long as that $50/mo. comes in, they don't give a rat's ass.

      The smaller DSL ISP's are usually on the job, though. They give me a small amount of hope.

      --
      That is all.
  3. Yeah by eamber · · Score: 2, Funny

    I work for a school district, and I swear, everyone pronounces it nimBA - it drives me crazy.

    Anyway, yeah, last year around this time was fun. Thanks for dredging up those memories.

  4. Nimda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Of course, the patch to fix the security problem was out months beforehand but lazy sysadmins just didn't update their systems.

    Thats what you linux guys say every time there is an Apache worm, isn't it? Let's be consistent, shall we?

    1. Re:Nimda by Mandi+Walls · · Score: 5, Interesting
      See F-Secure for the current infection of the slapper worm, 5 days after discovery. Infected servers: < 14,000 total, according to them.

      Now. this report from Sep. 21, 2001 reports 1.3 million infected NIMDA servers.

      Help me out here.

      Where is the comparison? I'm still wading through NIMDA/Code Red requests on my webservers, looking for any sign that those servers have been poked by slapper infected servers. No dice so far.

      Slapper is generating panic because it's got a peer to peer network on the backend, not because it's actually been able to infect a lot of servers. can you imagine what would happen if someone wanted to start a p2p network on the NIMDA/Code Red infected servers that are still online now? to say NOTHING of the 1.3 million and up that were infected originally.

      slapper is a silly excuse for some "Open Source Sucks" journalism, not a reason to head for the hills and unplug the router.

      So here you go:
      [chastise]
      Oh, you lazy stupid 14,000 linux/apache admins! patch your servers!
      [/chastise]
      [screaming rant]
      it's been a year! get that "guy who knows computers" who put that shiatty NT server on the net for you to get back in your office and put some patches on it! give him a beer for pete's sake!
      [/screaming rant]

      Thank you.
      --mandi

  5. our office got it. by snatchitup · · Score: 4, Funny

    We had just brought in a bunch of dot-com reject sys admins.

    Suddenly you hear everyone talking about the NAMBLA virus. Seriously, it was a spoonerism, or whatever. But everyone was running around blaming NAMBLA. Finally we realized it was NIMDA.

    Turns out there was a dude that got smoked out because he had kiddie porn on his PC. We just fired him.
    But if it weren't for this virus, we'd wouldn't have had the witch hunt that found this perv.

  6. Re:5-10? by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2

    I get none. Why don't people have virus filters on their e-mail servers?

    Exim + Exiscan = Bliss.

  7. Still kicking by JediTrainer · · Score: 5, Informative

    If anybody is interested, I've developed WormScan last year, which is a Java-based program (GPL) which can analyze your Apache log files for pretty much anything you want (just plug in your regular expressions). It detects Nimda and CR1+2 out of the box. It's easy to add your own entries to scan for.

    According to my logs (please be gentle), I've been hit 650 times yesterday.

    Shameless plug, yes. But it does the job and the users of WormScan seem to be pretty happy with it, judging from the emails I've gotten so far.

    --

    You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
    1. Re:Still kicking by fault0 · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I've gotten pretty much the same conclusions as you. Nimda is still very much alive, and codered(1/2) are practically dead.

    2. Re:Still kicking by pclminion · · Score: 5, Funny
      If anybody is interested, I've developed WormScan [freshmeat.net] last year, which is a Java-based program (GPL) which can analyze your Apache log files for pretty much anything you want (just plug in your regular expressions).

      I think I've heard of a similar program before. I might have even used it... Hmm, what was that program?

      Oh, yeah! grep

      (sorry man, I'm just pokin' fun)

    3. Re:Still kicking by laserjet · · Score: 3, Funny

      Will you guys stop clicking his link? I am trying to download his program. Right now at a steady 0.6 KB/s because of all you bastards.

      He said be GENTLE. Usually slashdotters are really gentle with links to servers, but today, why must everyone be so rude? One at a time!

      Thanks.

      --
      Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
    4. Re:Still kicking by JediTrainer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      (sorry man, I'm just pokin' fun)

      :) 'kay. Perhaps I should have mentioned that it's got lots more features than that... most notably the pretty reports with graphs and such.

      No offense taken... grep is what I used before I decided I wanted something that could make more sense visually.

      --

      You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
    5. Re:Still kicking by sheldon · · Score: 2

      Interesting... according to my stats I'm only getting around 5-8 hits per day on port 80. Far far less than I was receiving at this time last year.

    6. Re:Still kicking by Swaffs · · Score: 2

      I've heard of a similar program that's great for detecting these viruses. Its called Windows. Works every time.

      --

      --
      "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]

    7. Re:Still kicking by digitalsushi · · Score: 2

      i got your grep GUI report right here :D (sh or bash)

      for IamElite in `grep winnt /var/log/httpd/access_log|awk '{print $1}'`;do echo -n \#;done

      --
      slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
  8. Slapper by Dynamoo · · Score: 3, Informative
    Aww heck I hadn't realised Nimda was a year old.. maybe it's not a coincidence that Slapper is gearing up a huge P2P Apache-based worm for something.. maybe today?

    Where did I put my hard hard? I think I might be needing it.

    --
    Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
  9. Nimbda? by Second_Derivative · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm still getting nailed by Code Red. Weird how something can survive for two years without touching a single permanent storage device.

  10. Nimda Fraud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nimda 0|/\|Nz j00 !

    No really , its a brilliant little Virus. I am sure lot of unscrupulous people made a lot of money from that one. Think about it, any unsecured server with this virus broadcasts this fact to the whole world !

    Just backtrack to the Broadcassting computer, and you can own it in 5 Minutes. I shudder to think at all the financial information that was made availiable from this virus.

    With Windows 2000 and XP still unsecure, we just need to wait for Nimda 2 and really make some money =-)

  11. Slashdot uptime = 1 year by msheppard · · Score: 5, Funny

    And it's probably no coincidence that slashdot stats report 365days uptime today.

    M@

    --
    Krispy Cream is people
    1. Re:Slashdot uptime = 1 year by msheppard · · Score: 2

      Slashdot stats are available on the main slashdot page, I believe. YOu might need to be logged in and have it selected to display.

      M@

      --
      Krispy Cream is people
  12. NIMDA the sysadmins friend :-s a little anecdote by fruey · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Oh... first of all, it's viruses. Not virus's... what the hell is that?

    I was working on a project to set up a proxy (Squid, in fact) for an education institution here in Morocco. If you think US sysadmins could get some clue, think again. I noted they were running NT workstation service pack 3 (lol) and I was already sweating. I set the proxy up as the gateway, to make it transparent, and started the service. Within 10 minutes the log file had grown massive. I tweaked a few params, and then left it running, saying I'd come back the next day.

    The client calls me first thing, saying my proxy is shit, doesn't work, etc. I turn up in a panic, thinking I'd messed something simple up. Then it dawned on me... seems like most of the hosts on the network were infected with Nimda (amongst other things). The logfile had exceeded 2Gb and had crashed the service (it had filled the /var partition completely). It was logging 100 Nimda scans a second.

    This was just about 3 months ago. The sysadmin didn't even really know how her DHCP server worked, and had no service packs anywhere. The only reason sp3 was some places was because the NT CD had been bought just before Win2K came out, and SP3 was bundled with a sticker "make sure you install this too".

    Explaining to the client that all the hosts were infected, that they seriously needed an antivirus solution, and that all machines would have to be taken offline (they had public IPs for chrissakes) until the disinfection was finished was a tough thing to do without just flaming that person, I assure you. We did get them sorted out in the end, but somehow they still think my proxy isn't worth shit :-(

    --
    Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
  13. Hrm by Alizarin+Erythrosin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is it every time there's an addendum or update on a worm/virus report that Taco hasta remind us how much crap mail he gets?

    --
    There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
  14. 100nix?? by saphena · · Score: 2

    What about Linux/Slapper then?

  15. The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by burgburgburg · · Score: 4, Interesting
    CmdrTaco writes that he's still getting multiple Klez viruses after all this time. That begs the question: what has been the most long-lived virus/worm/trojan so far?

    That question should probably be broken down into two parts:a) What virus/worm/trojan, as originally written, has been present in the wild for the longest? b) What virus/worm/trojan, through slight adjustment, has been able to keep coming back infecting and reinfecting for the longest?

    1. Re:The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by mblase · · Score: 4, Funny

      That begs the question: what has been the most long-lived virus/worm/trojan so far?

      That's easy -- MAKE MONEY FAST!

    2. Re:The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by Telastyn · · Score: 4, Funny

      a: Outlook
      b: Win95-ME

      Note: I am an NT admin in trade, and make such comments (mostly) in jest.

    3. Re:The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by shepherd_97850 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here is some data from an isp mail server (out of 384k delivered messages) .41% of all mail traffic was the Klez virus. top 10 Viri by messages (percentage by delivered messages) 1144 ( 0.41) W32/Klez.h@MM 83 ( 0.03) W32/Nimda.htm 40 ( 0.01) W32/SirCam@MM 33 ( 0.01) W32/Magistr.b@MM 30 ( 0.01) W32/Hybris.gen@MM 23 ( 0.01) W32/Yaha.g@MM

    4. Re:The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by David+Gerard · · Score: 2
      That begs the question: what has been the most long-lived virus/worm/trojan so far?

      So how's Happy99.exe going these days? The little turd was very much alive and well by the end of 2000 ...

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    5. Re:The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by KnightStalker · · Score: 2

      I'd be willing to bet it's something like ANTICMOS, at least where Win95 is still afflicting users.

      --
      * And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
    6. Re:The most long-lived virus/worm/trojan? by FattMattP · · Score: 2

      That isn't what begging the question means. Read up: http://skepdic.com/begging.html

      --
      Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
  16. Re:Worm Birthdays? by N3WBI3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ill tell you what if the OpenSSL bug does 1 hundreth of the damage to network communication that nimda did Ill buy the cake..

    --
  17. Re:5-10? by Dominic_Mazzoni · · Score: 2

    i WISH i was getting 5-10. i'm still getting 50-70 a day, after peaking at ~100.

    I'm getting somewhere between 10 and 20 Klez worms a day, too. Of course I filter them with procmail, but I'm paranoid and I send them to a separate mail folder.

    What's really annoying is the automatic mail I get from the few with-it ISPs out there who detect a Klez worm sent through their mail servers with my name on it!

    I've been collecting the mail headers, hoping to track down the worst offenders. So, is there a way to trace Klez, or are the headers forged so much that it's impossible to track? I haven't had any luck so far...

  18. Re:Worm Birthdays? by Mandi+Walls · · Score: 2
    Of course not.

    Why?

    Because the fewer than 14,000 servers infected with slapper are nothing compared to the infection of NIMDA and its derivatives.

    duh.

  19. "Many Happy Returns" by dskoll · · Score: 2, Funny

    Aha... Now I understand the meaning of that phrase...

  20. A limerick suiting this topic... by Chagatai · · Score: 5, Funny
    Nimda, Klez, and Red
    Whilst fornicating in bed
    Felt something new
    Saying, "Melissa, is that you?"
    And found Bill Gates naked, instead.

    --
    --Chag
  21. Re:5-10? by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2

    Yeah, that pisses me off. There is one local ISP that e-mails postmaster@domain-that-was-in-the-from for every virus it gets in the mail. I know the virus isn't coming from my server, cause as I said in another post I run Exiscan from within Exim. It is nice, it just closes the SMTP connection when a virus is detected with an error message.

  22. Re:5-10? by iceT · · Score: 2

    50 to 70 per day? Please!!!

    Over 2200 various and assundry Windows virii/worms hits since Monday.

    --
    -- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
  23. Ahh the memories... by mrgrey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I work in a rather large school district and we run 6+ Netware servers and only 2 NT servers, not because we want to run NT, just because some software requires it. Anyways, we run Nortans Corporate Virus Scanner on a couple of the Netware boxes and they scan every file that comes through the network and beep if the file is infected. So I'm sitting in a lab and I'm looking through some folders on the network and I'm seeing tons of these .elm file and such. I ask another tech what was up. He didn't know. I walk into the server room and all I hear is BEEEEEEEP BEEP BEEEEP BEEP BEEP etc etc. At this point I concluded that we were screwed. I do some quick reasearch and discover nimd@. Oh, joy, it infects mapped drives. Good thing we have mapped drives in EVERY login script. Crap... Quickly login and start doing recursive deletions of .elm and etc files that nimd@ creates. Then we spend the weekend running a nimd@ cleaner on every machine in the district (1000+). All the while that was going on our NT boxes were attacking 5-6 other districts NT boxes and their boxes were attacking ours. It was a joyous occasion...

    --
    -Tolerate my intolerance
    1. Re:Ahh the memories... by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      Its .eml not .elm ..

    2. Re:Ahh the memories... by No-op · · Score: 2

      pull the network cable out ?

      an hour of downtime might have saved you the hassle there...

      I know that I was watching all the silly hits, but security holes that allow arbitrary execution of code on a target are bad... that is, in fact, what patches are for, and the MS security mailing list helps :)

      --
      EOM
    3. Re:Ahh the memories... by No-op · · Score: 2

      kinda makes you feel good that all our hard work in those times was recognized, right?

      "But how can it be a virus when it says it LOVES me?!?!?"

      --
      EOM
  24. And what are we doing today? by lamj · · Score: 2

    One year after Nimda. We are fighting the Slaper worm. Did anyone say Deja vu?

    Wonder what we are going to fight next year.

    1. Re:And what are we doing today? by Fjord · · Score: 2

      Nimda and whatever Unix-attack-of-the-day-due-to-careless-admins occurs.

      To be fair, according to the link, it took 3 days, not one, before the slapper virus was removed from it's network (it just shows how many hosts were on the p2p network it was setting, up, there may still be infected hosts out there that have been blocked from the network (by a firewall, for example).

      --
      -no broken link
  25. Does this mean... by McFly69 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does this mean I have to write another one?

    --



    NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
    1. Re:Does this mean... by Darth+RadaR · · Score: 2

      Or at least put out a service pack. ;)

      --
      /*drunk.. fix later*/
  26. Cease and Desist by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Funny


    Dear hikeran,

    It has come to our attention that you published a portion of our copyrighted material. Namely the lyrics to the popular [but copyrighted] song : 'Happy Birthday To You'.

    We would ask that you refrain from repeating this action and ask that you make the best effort to remove such violations made by you.

    Should this matter be brought before us again we will demand a license fee payable to Warner Brothers.

    The work has been subject to copyright laws since 1935 and doesn't expire until 2012.

    For more details see here

    Thank you,

    Daffy & The Guys

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  27. Hard to say... by NetJunkie · · Score: 2

    We occasionally get all sorts of old viruses hitting our AV system on the mail server. Some, like the Snow White one, is very old. We don't see them every day, but we definately see them a few times per year.

    Klez is definately still going strong. We see 5 to 8 of those per day. We're not even a big shop (180 users).

  28. Re:Speeking of worms and virii by intermodal · · Score: 2

    ISPs don't want to take Linux seriously for one large reason: it makes setting up a server affordable. They don't want you setting up a server, they want you to pay to use theirs, and to use less bandwith all around so they can make more money off you. Hell, just installing Debian asks you for a domain name for the box to be part of. You think ISPs want to help support user-box subdomains, or explain to a user that they won't help them with it? I didn't think so. Anyway, yeah...UNIX is powerful. ISPs desire sheep users as clientele, not technocrats and l33t h4x0rZ. Stereotypes i know, but thats how business works. Sucks, don't it?

    --
    In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  29. Re:NIMDA the sysadmins friend :-s a little anecdot by fruey · · Score: 2, Informative
    http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html

    It's viruses.

    --
    Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
  30. Re:Speeking of worms and virii Troll by puto · · Score: 2

    Are you serious? The Vast Majority of ISPs are running some *NIX. Which I would put a large percent of that number running Linux. I just switched a major site from a BSD host to a linux box and we have seen no problems. And I am talking about 35 gigs of hosting.

    I am starting my own hosting company and my two servers are on Redhat. There are thousands of little hosting companies that run linux, and some large ones as well. Valueweb is switching from BSD to Linux and thier are pretty big. Rackspace is a big linux shop.

    Do ISP's take Linux seriously? Yeah, I say that is why the all use it.

    As for your ISP? Well, you are ultimately responsible for securing your own box. Windows, Linux, or whatever. Your ISP can issue warnings but if they are worth their salt they will protect you an themselves.

    You know I have ranted too much. Troll elsewhere.

    Puto

    --
    The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
  31. Still getting hit by rossz · · Score: 5, Informative

    No doubt in celebration of the birthday, I got a number of nimda hits this morning.

    mount -t smbfs password= //xx.xx.xx.xx/C$ /mnt/dork
    vi /mnt/dork/boot.ini

    Change the boot delay to some huge number and the boot message to "Run a virus scanner, asshole".

    umount /mnt/dork

    --
    -- Will program for bandwidth
  32. Re:How to block Klez emails from my mailbox? by Draoi · · Score: 4, Informative
    Replying to the senders (the From: address) won't work, 'coz it's forged. Klez pulls email addresses from the victim's address book/inbox and uses them for the 'from'. You have to look deeper into the headers to find the culprit.

    Here's one I just got;

    From: webmaster <webmaster@msn.com>
    Date: Wed Sep 18, 2002 15:03:16 Europe/Dublin
    To: webmaster@christymoore.net
    Subject: User code here
    Return-Path: <tony_XXXXXXXX@oceanfree.net>
    Received: from bubble.oceanfree.net ([212.2.162.35]) by ddandd.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8IEADp05002 for <webmaster@christymoore.net>; Wed, 18 Sep 2002 15:10:13 +0100
    Received: from [193.203.147.182] (helo=Qrxy) by bubble.oceanfree.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #3) id 17rfQB-0002p3-00 for webmaster@christymoore.net; Wed, 18 Sep 2002 15:03:16 +0100
    Mime-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=Z0z7O8r66243H01338eADBxj05jJ7LLMnHZ85
    Me ssage-Id: <E17rfQB-0002p3-00@bubble.oceanfree.net>
    Statu s:
    Attachments: There is 1 attachment
    Do you think this was sent by webmaster@msn.com? (I hear the jokes now!). In this case, the Return-path actually contained the victim's full mail address, which I've mercifully blanked ...
    --
    Alison

    "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein

  33. Re:stupid fuck by Meridun · · Score: 2
    I believe that Taco means he's still receiving copies of klez at a rate of 5-10 a day. Given that Klez typically run it's payload on Windows with the assistance of Outlook, I sort of doubt that he's spreading it as you seem to believe.


    Sadly, I completely understand his predicament, since I'm still receiving klez emails at about the same rate (which is one of the reasons I use Mozilla for email). Even worse, klez forges the FROM field through SMTP, so it's extremely difficult to tell who's infected. I get bounce messages all the time from people who think I'm infected, because of the header forging (I'm not; I checked the running processes, ran a virus scan, and ran netstat looking for unexpected connections).

  34. I Dumped OE by istartedi · · Score: 2

    I dumped OE because of Nimda. Yeah, there's a patch but I still haven't gone back and secured it. I switched to Pegasus. I hate Pegasus, but I guess not as much as I hate sending away for the patch.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  35. A good use for web services... by sterno · · Score: 2

    Here's an idea for a web service. Have a query system over at one of the major security clearinghouses that can be queried remotely by an application. Then have an application that runs on your system that periodically scans your system for files that are potentially at risk due to the latest security vulnerability.

    Right now, the problem is that vendors will release information specific to their platform, but then if you download anything outside that platform, you are possibly putting yourself at risk unless you actively keep track of each piece of software. If you install enough software this becomes a tremendous pain.

    This way, if there's a possible problem, you get alerted to it, can review the related security advisory, and then easily download the patches for it. That could really trim down on the severity of worm outbreaks I suspect.

    --
    This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
  36. Klez programmed to go off September 13 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    the reason why klez and its variants are still going strong now is because they are programmed to commence 'attacking' on September 13 (among other dates). lots of systems were infected but because the virus was dormant, they were undetected. since september 13, Klez has been in full force.

  37. Re:How to block Klez emails from my mailbox? by laserjet · · Score: 2

    What filter would you use? I use an online email client(not hotmail), and I know it is klez because of the large message size, but how do you filter it out? Usually there is nothing in the body of the message, and the subject seems random.

    --
    Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
  38. How hard would it be ... ? by adipocere · · Score: 2, Interesting
    To write some some kind of module for Apache to correct this. It wasn't hard to write a module, apparently, that e-mailed the sysadmin in question and said, hey, you're infected. Do something about it, Bozo!

    What about a module that detected Nimda, Code Red, whatever attacks, then just attacked back? On attacking back, it uses the very same security holes (I think four of them) through which these worms propagate to issue a shutdown on the system and change the registry key for the startup text to say, "Hey, you're infected by Nimda, fix this now, download this."

    Actually, rather than a shutdown, which may just restart some servers, it should issue a big fat SYSTEM HALT with a notice of infection. "Oh, yeah, we've changed your administrator password to XYZZY, too. A registry key has been added such that, if an attack is detected from your machine a second time, FORMATTING OF YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL OCCUR." Probably get someone's attention.

    Yeah, this wouldn't be particularly legal, but it isn't as if Nimda logs what targets it is attacking. Just leave up a few boxes running this and the infection would drop dramatically.

    1. Re:How hard would it be ... ? by PenguinRadio · · Score: 2

      Why not just fix the machine? Isn't their a simple fix that could be sent to their machine, run, thus clearning things up for them. Didn't someone try this?

    2. Re:How hard would it be ... ? by kc0dby · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, you could look at these viruses as more of a protocol than a virus. When the other user initiates the connection, you can simply send a series of 'response' packets to verify that you received the request for a connection. If their computer doesn't know how to handle the 'response' and does something silly like crash, well, that just means they need to update the driver they have for that 'protocol' I mean, the guy who wrote that version they are running now must have been crazy! Its practically a virus!

      --
      I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
    3. Re:How hard would it be ... ? by Restil · · Score: 2

      It might not be legal in the sense that you "attack back" the infected server. However, If you set up a webpage that people go to in order to "fix" their infected computers, and that page just so happens to be named one of the files that the worms are attempting to access.

      In the past, I've seen pages that would allow you to test your system to see if you were vulnerable to the various nuke programs (winnuke, teardrop, etc), of the sort "if you get this message, that means you're still operational, and you're not vulnerable"

      So set up a page, explain exactly what it will do, and include on there a link to the script that will "fix" the client computer. If people come along, access my server, and my server does exactly what they requested it to do.... how grey is the legal area?

      Of course, its probably still illegal, since nobody "authorized" the activity, but it might be less shaky legal ground. If you don't want my webserver fixing your computer, then don't access it. Dunno.

      -Restil

      --
      Play with my webcams and lights here
    4. Re:How hard would it be ... ? by joshki · · Score: 2

      This was discussed in great detail and at length in the original threads about Nimda a year ago. I think the general conclusion of the community (if you can really say there was one) was that the legal risk (at least for those of us in the states) was too high to do it.

      --
      I do not read or respond to AC's. If you want a discussion, log in. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
  39. The solution by Mr_Silver · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It would appear that Taco doesn't read postings on Slashdot, even the ones modded +5.

    Anyway, here is it again for Taco:

    Put this in your .procmailrc file:

    :0 B
    * Content-Disposition: attachment
    * name=.*\.(com|exe|pif|scr|bat|lnk|shf|vbs)
    {
    # Stick it somewhere
    :0 B:
    /dev/null
    }

    Of course, this is a bit drastic by throwing every file that ends in that type into the bin, so you may want to replace it with something like /home/username/mail/viruses

    Finally (and this bit is especially for Taco) you will probably need to have a .forward file with the following in it:

    |/usr/bin/procmail

    Once you've done that, then finally we'll never heard again from you how many viruses a day you can get.

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    1. Re:The solution by SecretAsianMan · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Just a few small notes:
      • You may want to use H instead of B to deliver to the bit bucket. The header is likely to be smaller than the body, so using H can result in a much smaller write.
      • You don't need to put a second colon on that line, either. There's no reason to use locks when delivering to the bit bucket. I think procmail may even ignore this colon.
      • Maybe you should anchor the regular expressions to the beginning of the line.
      --

      Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.

  40. my update on nimda by valmont · · Score: 2
    check out my /.journal for two articles i've posted, the first one about how to keep your apache logs clean from coredred/nimda queries, and a second one posted a few months ago which points you to a list of all unique codered/nimda queries i've received.

  41. reporting klez by Parsec · · Score: 2

    I've started reporting Klez to the site abuse mailboxes in the hopes they will do something about it. Just report it as you would a normal spam, but say it's a probable virus and give the IP address.

    I can't say they'll do anything, but it's better than doing nothing.

    1. Re:reporting klez by garcia · · Score: 2

      I report them several times a day. Does nothing. I still have people hitting my webserver (the same IPs).

    2. Re:reporting klez by Eric+Savage · · Score: 2, Informative

      You realize that Klez is a client virus right? Mailing abuse@ is only going to piss off the person reading and take time away from dealing with issues they have some control over.

      --

      This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
    3. Re:reporting klez by leviramsey · · Score: 2, Informative

      It depends on the network you're emailing to. University IT departments, being knowledgeable, will tend to just immediately disable that computer's MAC address.

      For instance, UMass apparently tells the DHCP server to assign an IP address on one of the netblocks reserved for NAT and has the routers redirect any HTTP requests to a page saying that that computer's rights to access the network have been suspended and how to restore those rights (apply the patches, and inform the IT people, who presumably run a scan on your computer to determine whether you've patched).

    4. Re:reporting klez by Parsec · · Score: 2

      Yes. It's a client virus that harms both the network it's using and other's networks. I think abuse@ is the perfect group to deal with it.

      Besides, they are the ones with the tools at hand to track down who was using what IP at what time and notify them. Otherwise we wait until that user discovers they have 30 different viruses all competing for network time on their machine. That is how they can have control over this issue. The user doesn't have to be cut off, just informed.

      Also, by prefacing it with a little note like "probable virus at IP#", if they choose not to deal with it, it only takes them 4 seconds to read and delete.

  42. Re:NIMDA the sysadmins friend :-s a little anecdot by Brigadier · · Score: 2



    Here is my Nimbda nightmare. I manage two offices, primarily CAD and graphics. Both connected to the net via a T1. My local office sits behind a nice iptables firewall with my patch and locked down NT server serving one IP for VPN. The other office is managed by a consultant because I cant' always get there as needed. Long story short the server died ( dead array) so after 12 hours of recovering the work I headed out instructing the consultant to lck down the server ( patch it, remove uneeded service, apply lockdown patch close unecessary ports) ofcourse he didn't in the space of 12 hours my entire network was filled with nimda eml nws files. luckly that was teh extent of teh infection that office. The server was a fresh install W2k server. Needless to say the next few days was speent hand picking corrupted files from the server. Before I even thought nimda was cute but now it's hell's own scurge. I consistently e-mail ISP's notifying them of infected machines probing my network.

  43. Re:5-10? by compwizrd · · Score: 2

    What's wrong with the Return-Path: in the headers?

    Works just fine here.

  44. Macs by tral · · Score: 2

    If there is one thing a Mac is good for it is checking email.

    1. Re:Macs by Mononoke · · Score: 3, Funny
      Yup. Nimda: Just another app that won't run on Macs.

      I do like being able to safely open all the interesting attachments Klez sends me. Interesting and funny stuff in there from time to time.

      --
      NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
  45. Nimda ISP warning program by Brigadier · · Score: 2

    http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/earlybird/

    I recieved this link from a linux group. It basically detects nimda attacts on your apache/linux system then attempts to e-mail the sysadmin of the ISP. it works great. It has spam potential yes but nimda and the incompitent Admins who incubate this virus on there system needs to be irradicated.

  46. Re:NIMDA the sysadmins friend :-s a little anecdot by unicron · · Score: 2

    Welcome to Slashdot, where the fight for the moral, cultural, technological, and sociological good is the driving force, paused only when it may cost one of us time or money.

    --
    Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
  47. Re:NIMDA the sysadmins friend :-s a little anecdot by jsse · · Score: 2

    yeah even you are the first one hero found the problem you are the easily one to blame. Don't feel bad about it.

    Just for the sake of exp sharing. If keeping log is not an requirement then I'll just turn it off or redirect it to null, unless you've some measure of cleaning up the log. Log files is always the bane for lazy admin.(and definitely not your fault). Turn off anything that they didn't ask for, there's no need to be your daddies' good boy in business.

    If keeping logs is an requirement? Easy, add up huge function points in spec and charge more for services. Schedule extra time to test and teach the log keeping - and even more money will be charged.

    That's the logs you asked to look, you shouldn't blame me to charge more.

  48. Re:our office got it. by Mononoke · · Score: 3, Funny
    Hmm...Am I the only one who finds it ironic that both the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and kiddie porn are mentioned in the same post?
    Like rain on your wedding day?

    --
    NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
  49. As Ed Felton said... by MoonRider · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Given the choice between dancing pigs and security people will choose dancing pigs every time."

    There'll be many "nimdas" yet to come...

  50. Re:Nimda? by Suppafly · · Score: 2

    Anyone else ever notice that Nimda = Admin spelled backwards?

    Thats not a coincidence.

  51. Nimda Removal by Sufoog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What are people's opinions on an anti-nimda client which when scanned by a nimda infected machine will use the Nimda exploits to remove Nimda from the attacking system?

    You could use the tftp client to download the M$ patches and on the condition they were non-interactive you could install them?

    I am under the impression this is highly illegal, but I am just about fed up with my Apache logs filling up! My ipchains DENY list is already quite excessive as I have a program which denies a machine after it has scanned me. The only problem with this approach is the fact most of these people are dialups with dynamic IP's so I am not doing myself any favours except filtering out whole ISP's in a slow time.

    Thanks, Chris

  52. Re:5-10? by SCHecklerX · · Score: 2

    Because I don't run a 'virus filter' on my web server.

  53. Re:our office got it. by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 2
    Hmm...Am I the only one who finds it ironic that both the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and kiddie porn are mentioned in the same post?

    That's how they probably found the perv -- scanning files looking for the string NAMBLA, and they found these obscene text files... The rest, as they say, is history (much like the kiddi-porn ex-employee).

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  54. Re:5-10? by Stephen+Samuel · · Score: 2
    I generally check the 'recieved' headers... The box that my ISP recieved the message from is (as far as I'm concerned) the responsible box. That's who I send my complaint emails to.

    I just start with the ISP, and then I either use the reverse DNS, or do a traceroute (mtr) to find the responsible ISP for that IP.

    For web probes, I use a script on my linux box that auto-mails the responsible ISP. I think I'm down to 2 or 3 probes a day, now.

    --
    Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
  55. Re:5-10? by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2

    Well if the "5-10" in the subject wasn't enough for you, quoting CmdrTaco, "I'm still getting 5-10 klez virus's a day!"

    This thread was about Taco always complaining about the number of viruses he gets in his inbox. You'd think the person responsible for creating Slashdot would do something a little more proactive than complaning...or not.

  56. Re:our office got it. (OT) by LinuxHam · · Score: 2

    But Alanis couldn't get it past the corporate censors

    Oh, but she got "will she go down on you in a theater" and "are you thinking of me when you f*ck her?" right past them...

    the "corporate censors" aren't as bad as you think.. (at least in this case).. you should try listening to Nick Cave's Murder Ballads sometime..

    --
    Intelligent Life on Earth
  57. Re:Speaking of worms and virii by kaiidth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey, I've been in that same situation with Blueyonder. Here's what you do, if they really insist on using Windows;

    You lie.

    I've had some great conversations like that.

    Techie: "Now reboot"

    Me: "Right, just rebooting now." Pause to drink some coffee, stare at wallpaper, whatever, until a reasonable sounding amount of time has passed. "Done"

    The trick is to just say "Okay" and "Right" and "Done" a lot, write down the settings they give you (if any) and then do your own thing entirely. Better; unless you need action on their part don't call them at all, and if you do, tell them what to do directly, like so: "See the big red button on that router? Press it".

    Basically the problem they seem to have is they've been taught to follow a script, and if you confuse them they have to start it all over again. You get similar problems if any actual physical faults occur on the line - eg, no signal/broken cable - if you start your call by telling them the problem they get pretty confused.

    eg.

    Me: "Hi, the cable's down and the modem isn't able to connect. It's not receiving or sending anything at all according to the LED indicators."

    Techie: "Uhh, okay, have you tried rebooting your computer?"

    Me: "Why would I do that? The modem isn't receiving anything! The computer is not the problem."

    Techie: "Okay, well, can you reboot your computer?"

    Me: Sigh, pretend to reboot computer.

    Techie: "Does it work now?"

    Me: "No! There is no signal!"

    Techie: "Right, well, please reinstall your drivers, do you have your driver disk with you?"

    Me: "It's an external modem, I think my network drivers are just fine"

    Techie: "Please reinstall your drivers"

    Me: "Oh, very well" I pretend to reinstall my drivers.

    Techie: "Does it work now?"

    Me: "No!"

    Techie: "Did you reboot?"

    Me: Pretend to reboot the machine again.

    Techie "Does it work now?"

    Me: "No!"

    Techie: "Ah. Are all of the LEDs on the modem turned off?"

    Me: "YES!"

    Techie: "Okay, your cable's down, so the modem can't connect. Sorry"

  58. {chuckle} by A_Non_Moose · · Score: 2

    Recently I had to setup an ArcIMS (IMS = internet map server, or as I call it "Incomplete Masochistic Software") on a Windows 2000 Server.

    You have your choice of IIS or Apache, and guess which one I chose? Yep, Apache.

    After testing the box out, I cleared the logs (access/error) at about 3pm and left it running.
    Next day, I discover that less than an hour later a single IP address (204.xxx.xxx.xxx) hammered on it for 300+ hits with *both* codered and nimda and (the same ip or one in the range, I don't recall) hitting all of the default IIS directories looking for *anything*.

    I chuckled for a good half hour after that.

    --
    Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
  59. Re:our office got it. by geekoid · · Score: 2

    I hope you called the authorities on that guy.
    If not, some poor kid will pay for it.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  60. a more important birthday? by commodoresloat · · Score: 2

    Well, perhaps not, but today is the twentieth birthday of the emoticon!! Check out this interview (Requires Real) with the first person to ever use the ubiquitous smiley.

  61. Re:our office got it. by rsteele19 · · Score: 2
    Rain on one's wedding day has nothing to do with irony, and neither have most stanzas in Alanis Morissette's song. Check this out.

    Yeah, I know. Isn't it ironic?

    --

    This sig is umop apisdn.