Russian Denies Writing SoBig Worm

IphtashuPhitz writes "The Russian spamware programmer anonymously accused eariler this week of writing the Sobig worm has responded to the accusations. Ruslan Ibragimov of Send-Safe doesn't deny that his program uses proxies to hide spammer's identities. But he totally refutes the report's technical analysis in an online interview over at OReilly Network."

Comments

in Soviet Russia

[MakoStorm]

In soviet Russia the worms write YOU!

I don't buy it

[Commander Trollco]

The bit about headers is believable. But the opcode similarities are harder to defend- anyone know more about this and care to comment? He clearly has a motive, and should be lynched regardless of whether he actually wrote sobig.

Re:I don't buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

"He clearly has a motive, and should be lynched regardless of whether he actually wrote sobig."

Man, the Bush ideology spreads so fast?

Re:I don't buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

There are legitimate ways to compare executables (as opposed to the method used by the authors of "Who Wrote SoBig?").

0) All of these ideas involve disassembly. http://www.datarescue.com/idabaseIDA Pro is the best dsassembler on the market; all ideas below are implemented as extensions to it. Nothing even comes close to its sheer strength, except perhaps the underdeveloped, alpha knockoff http://lida.sourceforge.net/Lida.

1) http://www.datarescue.com/idabase/flirt.htmFLIRT signatures work surprisingly well for the detection of statically-linked libraries (assuming the library itself hasn't been recompiled). It is basically binary-based but there are important measures for dealing with code that can/will change between different binaries.

A plugin called http://www.sport-und-event.de/backtrace.de/plugins /idb_2_pat.zipIDB2PAT for IDA can take an executable and produce FLIRT signatures for all functions in it, which can be applied against any other executable for comparison. I find this very handy for malware versioning analysis.

2) http://www.razorteam.com/publish/papers/comparing- binaries.htmlInstruction Semantic-Based Binary Comparison The paper calls itself "Comparing binaries with graph isomorphisms" but this is a misnomer because there is nothing graph-based about the comparison; only the visualization has any bearing on graph theory. This technique attempts to match the assembly instructions almost exactly (not necessarily a byte-for-byte direct comparison). No public implementation is available for this method.

The problem with the two methods above and the reason that byte-for-byte comparison won't work in general is that compilers regularly re-arrange code or change register allocation, especially in the case an optimization is applied differently between builds. Two successive builds might look completely different on the binary level. Microsoft's internal compilers are especially notorious for this.

Enter 3) http://www.sabre-security.com/products/bindiff.htm lBinDiff by Halvar Flake. BinDiff is the most promising idea of the three (though designed for a different purpose than 1)). By using structural and graph-theoretic properties of executables (e.g. the call-tree) and the functions within them, BinDiff is able to compare executables without looking at the instructions themselves (except for properties that can be deduced in a CPU-independent fashion by IDA). That means that BinDiff can potentially diff binaries for different platforms, meaning the binaries could be using a different executable file format and a different assembly language. Obviously, the two binaries described would be remarkably different.

2) & 3) conception was motivated by the idea of diffing security patches (which they do with various degrees of effeciency). 1) is arguably at the core of IDA's power.

P.S. the "Who Wrote SoBig?" authors are completely full of shit. From the paper:

"AMS [a *completely unrelated* email client] and Sobig contain common high-level functionality, as both programs generate and send email. Although there are many ways to create this functionality in source code, it is extremely unlikely that two people working independently would generate similar opcode sequences for this type of functionality. From the results of our comparisons, the first 1K of memory indicated that they are very similar types of executables."

No shit, that's because the first 1k of the executable is usually the PE header. "Very similar types of executables"? What does that mean, anyway? The whole report is anonymous, unfounded slander.

After all this..

[jjeffrey]

..I bet he dosen't feel SoBig now.

Re:After all this..

[iamlucky13]

That's alright. He can sell himself some viagara.

As long as we're on the topic of spam and such, I think slashdot has slashdotted itself. The "bush wins" thread is average at least a post every 3 seconds, who knows how many hits, and the server is crawling

Re:After all this..

[jjeffrey]

The comment handling in SlashCode has always been a lot heavier to handle than the news pages. I think there is probbaly a lot more processing involved. I wonder how well optimised the SQL queires are and what the backend technology is - is it still MySQL? - UPADTEs and INSERTs are often going to be slower than SELECTs, but it may be worse if they are using MySQL in replicated mode with one master server to send all the updates too and a few slaves to do selects from. Though I guess that's unlikley with the load they get. Do they use MySQL Cluster?

Remember the rules

[Underholdning]

Rule #1:
Spammers lie!

Re:Remember the rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Rule #2: If a spammer seems to be telling the truth, see rule #1.

What a stand-up guy...

[sczimme]

The report noted, for example, a strong similarity in the email headers created by Send-Safe and SoBig. But Ibragimov said Send-Safe chose the particular order of headers merely to mimic Outlook Express and to better evade spam filters.

Somehow I think Ibragimov's righteous indignation over the accusation is a teensy bit misplaced...

WTF?

[Otter]

Not that I'm shedding any tears for this guy but does "Anonymous person accuses other person by name on the basis of sketchy circumstantial evidence!" really merit this degree of publicity?

Re:WTF?

[gl4ss]

well.

I found the biggest piece of evidence be the opcode similarities. which he doesn't comment at all, conviently.

but would he ADMIT IT? with 250 000$ reward on his head? of course not. but I'd rather have had him refute it totally, by reasoning and not just claiming that it's bullshit(when he even admits himself that his full of bullshit and into selling software for harassing people who try to _not_ get harassed).

Re:WTF?

[hkb]

Not that I'm shedding any tears for this guy but does "Anonymous person accuses other person by name on the basis of sketchy circumstantial evidence!" really merit this degree of publicity?

When said anonymous person's report lists some pretty damning evidence, such as header and code comparisons and analysis, ermm yes.

Proxie Shortage

[Rob Carr]

From the article:

"Trojans killed my business," he said, noting that many of his customers have recently migrated to "cracked" (pirated) versions of spamware programs such as Dark Mailer, for which they purchase lists of Trojaned proxies from hackers. .... Comments on Send-Safe's discussion forum appear to confirm that the company has had trouble providing users with sufficient proxies for sending spam.

There's irony in this guy's complaint, and (assuming he didn't write SoBig) at least a little justice. "My heart bleeds for the Snicker-Snack Company" - Linus (the character from "Peanuts," not the software guy)

Well, well, well,

[cavac]

so he doesn't write viruses, just unwanted bulk mail. Makes me much more comfortable. not.

For sure he denies.

[a_hofmann]

If you read the original report you can see hard facts against Ruslan Ibragimov.

The binary comparison in the report shows evidence for a correlation between Send-Safe and Sobig-F which could be proved if Ibragimov would be forced to open the Send-Safe source.

Hmm...

[northcat]

Maybe he wrote the "Who wrote the SoBig?" report himself to popularize his "Send-Safe" software... You never know...

TOTALLY REFUTES??? !!!

[Ancient_Hacker]

I'd reserve the phrase "totally refutes" for occasions where.... this actually happens. What I saw of the "refutation" was a few bits of unconvincing excuses and loose logic. The similarity in headers and the number and length of exact code matches is compelling and proabably irrefutable evidence.

Surprise!

[Se7enLC]

Wow, this is surprising! I was expecting "Russian accused of writing SoBig worm admits to it, despite the flagrant lack of evidence to actually convict him of anything."

"Totally refutes"???

[Zocalo]

Well let's see. Ibragimov makes a few claims such as "it's bullshit!", "it's a coincidence!" and gives a very brief outline of how SendSafe works, revealling nothing not in the report. He also claims he's not been spoken by any law enforcement agency regarding the matter, which is possibly true. Hardly a point by point rebuttal is it, and never mind the maxim "spammers lie" which means everything he says will be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

The only interesting comment I found is that his company is currently having difficulties due to trojans, something that the SendSafe forums seem to confirm. That seems quite probable, but it hardly helps his case - why, exactly, would trojans be causing his SendSafe business any problems? Unless, of course, it might be something to do with other trojans that he didn't write such as NetSky/Sasser preventing SoBig getting as many hosts as it used to? Given that there was a spat between the various trojan authors, complete with a possible Russian connection, just before Sven Jaschen was arrested that at least seems entirely plausible to me.

Well, he would, wouldn't he...

[advocate_one]

attributed to Mandy Rice-Davies when asked to comment on Astor's denial of ever seeing her

While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, Rice-Davies made the quip for which she is most remembered. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Astor denied having met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

Denied

[Anonymous Coward]

"Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!"

The evidence...

[JohnGrahamCumming]

If you read the long boring document that fingers this Russian guy you'll see the following "evidence":

1. Send-Safe and SoBig had same release dates. Where the margin on same is up to 10 days, and there are strange inaccuracies, for example the document states that on 5/23/2003 there was a SoBig release compiled on June 24, 2003. Other evidence hinges on the actions of SSSG without considering the possibilities that they were using a hacked version of Send-Safe.

2. Document contains unfounded statements like "As SSSG appears to be a sizable organization, it would seem unlikely that any individual within the group would actually know the Sobig author(s)."

3. The skills section is particularly funny since it lists skills like "Newsgroups" and states the the Russian has been posting on Newsgroups since 1998. Woo hoo!

4. The use of %s section made me want to LOL. The authors see significance in the fact that neither piece of software uses %s to concatenate strings,

sprintf( together, "%s%s", s1, s2 );

would be unusual for any C programmer, yet

sprintf( command, "RCPT TO:<%s>", rcpt );

looks like something any C programmer would do.

5. The note on string ordering with an example of SoBig vs Send Safe appears to me to show the opposite of what the authors intended. The two blocks look very different.

6. A large part of the document is dedicated to showing how the two exectuables are "similar" at the opcode level. There is no actual evidence here, e.g. how about a disassembly of two identical blocks of code? The comparison is interesting, but doesn't tell us much without being able to see the actual code.

Overall I though the PDF file was poorly written, lacking in rigor and provided no real evidence for the naming of this individual.

Yes, he helps people spam, and that's very, very annoying, but "innocent until proven guilty" people? Or at least "innocent until you actually show some convincing evidence".

John.

Well of COURSE he didn't write it.

[MadFarmAnimalz]

This is RUSSIA, you morons.

IT wrote HIM.

Get your facts straight.

Hasn't anyone else caught this obvious lie?

[Anonymous Coward]

The bit where he talks about headers is completely stupid and it shows that even on the interview he is lying. If you read the report, they say that Send-safe and sobig's headers are in the same order, which is different from outlook. So, he's lying.

Here's the quote from the "Who wrote sobig" article:

"Although these subtle differences suggest separate source code, the similarities suggest that Send-Safe was the
template, and not other mailing programs such as Outlook, Netscape, The Bat!, or AMS.

As these other independent email tools generate their headers with very different ordering, it would seem unlikely
that the Sobig author(s) determined the email headers and values independently."

And the quote from the interview:

"But Ibragimov said Send-Safe chose the particular order of headers merely to mimic Outlook Express and to better evade spam filters."

CONTRADICTION!