'Friendly' Worms Could Spread Software Fixes

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft researchers are working out the perfect strategies for worms to spread through networks. Their goal is to distribute software patches and other friendly information via virus, reducing load on servers. This raises the prospect of worm races — deploying a whitehat worm to spread a fix faster than a new attacking worm can reach vulnerable machines."

Comments

Prior Art

[orclevegam]

This is a very old idea. One of the earliest worm/viruses was actually of the "white-hat" variety. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:Prior Art

[deadzaphod]

Very, very old idea. The first worm of this type was called "Reaper" and was created to kill the "Creeper" worm. http://www.viruslist.com/en/viruses/encyclopedia?chapter=153310937

Re:Prior Art

[verbalcontract]

This is a very old idea. One of the earliest worm/viruses was actually of the "white-hat" variety. Nothing to see here, move along.

DUH. That's why my Norton Antivirus lights up when I click on those helpful "GET RID OF SPYWARE" ads?

Re:Prior Art

[nmb3000]

Very, very old idea.

And still being used occasionally. The most recent one I recall is Welchia which used the same RPC exploit as Blaster but tried to help the user by installing patches to prevent further use of the exploit.

It's an interesting idea, but still causes some of the big collateral problems that worms cause. Welchia brought university and corporate networks to their knees because of high traffic just as well as Blaster did - perhaps even moreso since it was also doing a lot of HTTP requests to Microsoft's servers. I think a better solution would be a more surefire way to make sure users get patched when such a critical vulnerability is found. That's the ironic part of the Blaster/Welchia RPC exploit, there was a patch available for months before the worm was released.

Re:Prior Art

[Beardo the Bearded]

If they learn how to program from us, we'll be fine.

We can survive salt water, high EMP fields, and power outages. A computer can't handle carpet.

My money's always going to be on the meatbags.

Re:Prior Art

[Spy der Mann]

It's an interesting idea, but still causes some of the big collateral problems that worms cause. Welchia brought university and corporate networks to their knees because of high traffic just as well as Blaster did

You could program the worm to spread based on a random calculation, and assign it a threshold so the traffic isn't excessive. This would give the worm a very low probability to survive.

However, a better approach IMO would be to get rid of all the Genuine Advantage and activation crack, and allow boxes using old and famous activation keys (such as the "devil's own") to get updated with Windows Update.

Re:Prior Art

[Deanalator]

"Funny isn't it? The human was impervious to our most powerful magnetic fields, yet in the end, he succumbed to a harmless sharpened stick."

        - Chapek 9 robot general

Re:Prior Art

[HTH NE1]

We need these friendly worms to patch these systems. How else than with lots of rapidly spreading, good intentioned automata are we to pave the very long road to Hell on time and under budget?

A viral implementation of Windows Update?

[lawaetf1]

"A friendly worm updated your computer which required a reboot."

Re:A viral implementation of Windows Update?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clippy worm: "I see you have Ubuntu installed, would you like to purchase and install Windows Vista?"

Annnndddd...

[RandoX]

What makes this any more legal than a black hat worm?

Re:Annnndddd...

[sm62704]

How many people went to prison for the Sony XCP rootkit?

That's right, none. There's your clue.

This is an old idea

[sm62704]

It keeps resurfacing every now and then. Get this through your thick skulls: It's my computer. Keep your God damned hands off of it. I don't care how good your intentions are, you have no right to infect MY computer with anything at all, good or bad.

If you use a tool like this on your own network, fine, but if I find it on my own you had better cover your tracks because I'll go ballistic.

Re:Annnndddd... Well, these worm

[davidsyes]

their way into your heart, so they're heart-worming welcomes.

Caused Issues the last time someone tried it..

[ironwill96]

Anyone remember when someone did this for Blaster and created the "Welchia" worm variant? An article on it is located here: White Hat Worm and Microsoft even complained that it "generated excess network traffic". Now they are proposing to do the same thing? How are they going to make the worm spread, through vulnerabilities like Welchia did? Hope they don't use an RPC vulnerability and cause your system to crash like it did!

I guess this goes with all of the tags we've seen today on articles of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong?".

I can hear it already...

[TheUni]

Customer: Something's wrong, my computer's not acting right.
Tier1 Customer Support: Ok sir, I'd be happy to help you with that. Firstly, do you have the latest Microsoft Virus(tm) installed?
Customer: Yes.
Tier1 Customer Support: OK, do you have an Antivirus installed?
Customer: Yes.
Tier1 Customer Support: Ah, that's the problem. You'll need to remove the Antivirus in order for the Virus to function correctly. It's not safe these days to be running without the latest Virii!

Stupid Idea

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

If the mechanism exists, it will be compromised. Haven't you leaned anything yet? Better design a system that can't process a worm.

The temptation if this became a strategy, i.e. the system can run Microsoft Worms only, would in a very short time, run Microsoft like worms.

This seems more like and admission that their systems can't be secured.

Or "Who's finger is in the dike? Dammit, thats not my dike!"

This one is different.

[Bananatree3]

First off this wouldn't be some whitehat's haphazard cure worm like the Welchia worm. This worm would proabably be signed by microsoft, made by microsoft. from TFA:

Because no central server needs to provide and coordinate all the downloads, Software patches that spread like worms could be faster and easier to distribute because no central server must bear all the load. This is more P2P patch distribution, which is not a bad idea.

Re:This one is different.

[mhall119]

If only it were possible to provide a list of other servers that somehow mirrored the data available on the central server....

Or, even better, a way to send requests to the same domain name to physically different servers...

I think I may be on to something here.

Re:This one is different.

[KublaiKhan]

And what, exactly, is stopping someone from forging an MS cert on their own worm (or, simpler, giving the appearance of a legit one--y'know, like bank website phishing), exploiting the worm dispersal mechanism, and rootkitting everyone who's stupid enough to let this worm in?

not exactly

[Brigadier]

If I'm not mistaken according to Micro Soft's EULA you don't actually own the software they do. They are just giving you permission to use it. Though you do own the hardware the worm in question would only affect or change the Soft Ware. In addition you neither own your network connection or most likely the building you live in ( dorm, apartment, mortgaged home etc) so from a purly legal stand point you have no leg to stand on. Though I do completely understand and support the meaning behind yrou rant :)

Re:not exactly

[Brigadier]

Now, I keep asking this question about EULAS: tell me, now. Mike buys a naked, no OS computer and a boxed set of Windows Vista Home, and asks me to install it for him. If I'm the one who agrees to the EULA, how is he legally held to that EULA? He didn't agree to anything, I did. And unless he's signed "power of attorney" to me, well? well he owns the computer, and has given you permission to act on his behalf installing the software. assuming you made him aware and he did not object the responsibility is his. If you did not make him aware thus he did not agree to it, he woudl then have recourse if he were sued say by microsoft to then sue you.

What if his ten year old child (or neighbor kid) installs it? if the child is his he will incur any responsibility for actions made by the child

If I have six PCs in my house networked together then I do own my network connection. I also own MY COPY of Windows. Nowhere on the box does it say I don't. See excerpt from microsoft EULA below.

3. RESERVATION OF RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP. Microsoft reserves all rights not expressly granted to you in this EULA. The Software is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and treaties. Microsoft or its suppliers own the title, copyright, and other intellectual property rights in the Software. The Software is licensed, not sold.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/eula.mspx

At one point, I liked this idea....

[mbourgon]

then we got hit with the anti-slammer worm. The slammer worm hadn't infected us, but the anti-slammer did, and wound up rebooting about 20 servers (which begs the question "why weren't they already patched?"), during the middle of the day. Pure panic mode as they started spontaneously rebooting.

Extremely bad idea

[Zen]

I don't care who implements this solution. It was a bad idea a few years ago and it's still a bad idea today. The delivery mechanism will be compromised, and just having this type of thing out there will create new interest in creating hazardous worms/virii. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want anybody touching any of my systems. Ever! How about differences in configurations? What if I have a highly modified registry because I'm doing some advanced package testing? Then you come in and 'fix' something based on default values and it corrupts my entire system? Who's going to fix it then?

What about all the security admins who filter traffic based on pattern matches and ports? So now when we see a spike in traffic from thousands of machines going to 1433 on successive IP's we're supposed to somehow make a diagnosis on whether it's good or bad traffic? It's unnecessary overhead on the network. Whatever it's intention, auto fixing of problems and specifically designed auto replicating extra internet traffic is a bad idea.

nothing to see here...

[RyLaN]

http://blanu.net/curious_yellow.html/

Brandon Wiley proposed a scenario in which a future internet would be consumed by the warfare between several (black or white) worms that feature node-coordinated efforts to prevent detection and removal. For those too lazy to read the link, "Curious Yellow" is basically a modular worm in which zero-day exploits can be added as they are discovered allowing for unchecked growth across the 'net. The worm can then work with other nodes to attack targets by dropping all their traffic, or by subtly modified whatever they receive. The best way to fight such a worm is with fire, a similarly designed "white" worm that goes around patching hosts as quickly as it can.

IMO, remote exploits are rare enough that I don't see this ever happening. On the other hand, with enough infected bot nodes to work with the data mining potentials of some of the more sophisticated extant work networks does worry me...

Oh yah, that'll work.

[Secret Rabbit]

Because M$ is soooo very good at normal updates:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/12/18/post-install-issues-with-ms07-069-ie6-on-xpsp2.aspx

(Among others) That they'll be a perfect candidate to create this type.

For that matter, I'd really like to know how someone/people who might do this, would get around that whole illegal thing.

This BS creeps up time and again....

[gweihir]

There are no friendly worms. Compromising the security of a system, REGARDLESS OF PURPOSE, is a hostile and criminal act. There is no excuse for it. In addition, an agile black hat could hijack the worm and put its own malcode in there.

Anybody proposing this nonsense just shows they do not even have elementary security knowledge and did not research the topic at all. Incompetents.

I can't wait...

[hoggoth]

Till the script kiddies use this delivery mechanism to bypass all security and deliver their own custom payloads.
Yay Microsoft! They have such good instincts when it comes to security!