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Rootkit May Be Behind Windows Blue Screen
L3sPau1 writes "A rootkit infection may be the cause of a Windows Blue Screen of Death issue experienced by Windows XP users who applied the latest round of Microsoft patches. It appears that the affected Windows PCs had the rootkit infection prior to deploying the Microsoft patches. Researcher Patrick W. Barnes, investigating the issue, has isolated the infection to the Windows atapi.sys file, a driver used by Windows to connect hard drives and other components. Barnes identified the infection as the Tdss-rootkit, which surfaced last November and has been spreading quickly, creating zombie machines for botnet activity."
That's one way of forcing users to take care of an infection.
If a system has been rooted, nothing short of booting to another OS from a known clean media, mounting the disk read only, and scanning, is guaranteed to detect a root kit.
That'd make updates a real pain in the arse to install...
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I've performed a forensic analysis on numerous Windows machines and have discovered rootkits that have lived on machines undetected for up to two years even though they were up to date on patches and AntiVirus defs. In fact one of the rootkits was unknown until I discovered it and sent a copy to threatexpert and virustotal.
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
Next time you might consider doing some backwards compatibility testing with popular rootkits, yes? Just a free tip Microsoft!
I've seen this Tdss-rootkit on many machines. Usually it infects a disk driver like atapi.sys or iastor.sys. Typically an infected machine will boot in normal mode, but NOT in safe mode (blue screens). If Windows will boot, running ComboFix has removed the rootkit for me every time. The author of ComboFix is a genius.
That is BS and you know it.
The user installed the virus into their system by doing something stupid.
Its like blaming the US Government for letting businesses go over sea when you still shop at Walmart.
Your response is a cop out.
Your response is what is commonly known as 'blaming the victim.' Seriously, you can't imagine any other way for malware to get onto a system except user stupidity? I'd call that a failure on your part. You know, Windows fanbois remind me of battered women, explaining to others how they walked into a door or fell down some stairs. No you didn't, you let somebody beat the shit out of you and then covered it up.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
After all, there's no way that their malware tool could have spotted it, or the update could have checksummed the files before patching them.
If they put half as much effort into their anti-malware activities as they do into their DRM regime, the world would be a better place. We'd all have unicorns, and a pot of gold.
Microsoft does detect it - and has since last October.
File atapi.sys received on 2010.02.11 21:58:49 (UTC)
Virus:Win32/Alureon.A
Updated: Dec 07, 2009
Aliases:
Win32/Olmarik!generic (CA) Rootkit.Win32.TDSS.u (Kaspersky)
W32/TDSS.drv.gen4.A (Norman)
Mal/TDSSPack-V (Sophos)
Encyclopedia entry
Updated: Dec 07, 2009 | Published: Dec 02, 2009
Aliases
Win32/Olmarik!generic (CA) Rootkit.Win32.TDSS.u (Kaspersky)
W32/TDSS.drv.gen4.A (Norman)
Mal/TDSSPack-V (Sophos)
Alert Level
Severe
Detection initially created:
Definition: 1.69.77.0
Released: Oct 23, 2009
There are no common symptoms associated with this threat. Alert notifications from installed antivirus software may be the only symptom(s). When the infecting trojan is run, it infects a system driver, usually 'atapi.sys'. It has also been observed to infect 'iastor.sys' but other system drivers may also be targeted. The system driver detected as Virus:Win32/Alureon.A is infected by the addition of code, whose function is to load a part of the Alureon rootkit. The Alureon rootkit is a component that gives Alureon the ability to avoid detection; it is created by the same Alureon trojan that infects the system driver. The rootkit loaded by Virus:Win32/Alureon.A has the ability to avoid behavior blockers, which allows it to perform its malicious routines uninterrupted. It can also hide files and disk sectors.
Manual removal is not recommended for this threat. To detect and remove this threat and other malicious software that may have been installed, run a full-system scan with an up-to-date antivirus product such as Microsoft Security Essentials... . Win32/Alureon may modify DNS settings on the host computer, thus the following steps may be required after the Win32/Alureon removal is complete:
If the computer has a network interface that does not receive a configuration using DHCP, reset the DNS configuration if necessary
> Saying Microsoft is responsible for ensuring compatability with 3rd party software is ludicrious.
And saying Microsoft is responsible for ensuring compatibility with _malicious_ 3rd party software is even sillier.
If your system is screwed up by a rootkit, there is no way to 100% predict what could happen if you try to continue using it (including trying to install patches).
If the BSODs are only happening to rootkitted XP boxes then it's clearly not Microsoft's fault.
I run a small computer repair shop, and we first started seeing this ATAPI.SYS virus a few weeks ago. When I would submit it to VirusTotal, it would always come back as clean on every single virus scanning engine - but I could tell it was infected. I even had a computer in here just yesterday which had the infected ATAPI.SYS file, yet it was not detected as such - even when the hard drive was mounted as a secondary drive in another system and scanned with several up-to-date antivirus programs.
The virus itself is actually quite a clever little beast. After infecting the file, it sets the file modification time back to the original date & time, which makes it hard to tell that it's been modified. Also, I've noticed that the byte counts between infected and non-infected versions of the file are almost always identical. But to do that, it appears to be injecting its code into the area normally used to store the file version information. The upshot is, if you check the file properties and there's no file version information (the Version tab under XP or the Details tab under Vista/Win7), there's a good chance the file is infected.
I have not had any computers come in to the shop with the BSOD mentioned in the articles yet, but I'm expecting them at any time...
Rootkit? I don't see it. Maybe it's because this damn blue screen is blocking my view.
The game.
Or you don't pay for the OS, and you don't have to pay for antivirus.
Isn't free software great?
Yes, this was from a virus/trojan/worm/whatever. Who cares? It could just as easily have been a custom file for custom hardware.
You don't know how rootkits work, do you?
It may not be possible to detect differences in a compromised file on a rooted system, because the rootkit will respond to requests with the original file's information.
So, for all we know, Microsoft did check the file before replacing it, but the rootkit told the OS it was unmodified.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
As much as I hate defending MS, I can't help but doing it here.
A rootkit (and that is one) in a system means that you, being software running on that system, have no chance of detecting it, at least if it has done its homework. For the patcher, those checksums might even have been correct.
It also needn't be manipulated files. Windows, as any OS that has to allow low level drivers, allows you to load non-MS ring0 drivers. Like, say, Linux. It's either that or writing a device driver for every single pesky little controller out there. Do you think MS would do that? Or even do it well?
Now, you don't need drivers for hard drives themselves, but for their controllers. And spyware is quite keen on snuggling up to those controller and "filtering" the calls between them and the OS. Now, those spyware drivers are deemed part of the I/O system (for obvious reasons, they are part of the HD controller drivers as far the OS is concerned). If that driver cannot be loaded because that patch fixes a loophole the spyware used, the OS identifies that as a critical error in the HD controller driver and cannot access the hard drive anymore. BSOD.
The very same would probably happen in Linux, in BSD, in ... whatever Apple's OS is called, I forgot. You have a driver that is deemed critical by the system that fails to load.
If you want to blame anything on MS here, it's probably that this rootkit drivers could be installed in the first place. And I honestly don't know if it's MS to blame or the user. What should MS do if the user clicks "allow" on anything he gets asked? Take away control from the user? I doubt you'd like that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Over 90% of current infections are due to social engineering (aka "user stupidity"). The rest is usually due to certain third party software from a company with a big A, usually a certain reader for a Pretty Dumb Format or a tool to make webpages flashy.
If it's blaming the victim to say that it's effing stupid to open attachments that are sent by "Lawyer" and titled "last reminder" or run "security patches" their bank sends them because else their account is closed immediately, then yes, I blame the victim. Stupidity is no excuse. And this behaviour is, bluntly, EFFING stupid!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.