Detect date
01/11/2002
Class
Virus
Platform
MSWord

Parent class: VirWare

Viruses and worms are malicious programs that self-replicate on computers or via computer networks without the user being aware; each subsequent copy of such malicious programs is also able to self-replicate. Malicious programs which spread via networks or infect remote machines when commanded to do so by the “owner” (e.g. Backdoors) or programs that create multiple copies that are unable to self-replicate are not part of the Viruses and Worms subclass. The main characteristic used to determine whether or not a program is classified as a separate behaviour within the Viruses and Worms subclass is how the program propagates (i.e. how the malicious program spreads copies of itself via local or network resources.) Most known worms are spread as files sent as email attachments, via a link to a web or FTP resource, via a link sent in an ICQ or IRC message, via P2P file sharing networks etc. Some worms spread as network packets; these directly penetrate the computer memory, and the worm code is then activated. Worms use the following techniques to penetrate remote computers and launch copies of themselves: social engineering (for example, an email message suggesting the user opens an attached file), exploiting network configuration errors (such as copying to a fully accessible disk), and exploiting loopholes in operating system and application security. Viruses can be divided in accordance with the method used to infect a computer:
  • file viruses
  • boot sector viruses
  • macro viruses
  • script viruses
Any program within this subclass can have additional Trojan functions. It should also be noted that many worms use more than one method in order to spread copies via networks.

Class: Virus

Viruses replicate on the resources of the local machine. Unlike worms, viruses do not use network services to propagate or penetrate other computers. A copy of a virus will reach remote computers only if the infected object is, for some reason unrelated to the virus function, activated on another computer. For example: when infecting accessible disks, a virus penetrates a file located on a network resource a virus copies itself to a removable storage device or infects a file on a removable device a user sends an email with an infected attachment.

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Platform: MSWord

Microsoft Word (MS Word) is a popular word processor and part of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Word files have a .doc or .docx extension.

Description

Technical Details

This virus uses an uncommon way of spreading. Instead of copying its macro program to the macro area in victim documents, it just writes to documents a reference to a template (attached template) which contains virus macros. MS Word97 when opening a such document detects the reference to the attached template, opens it and executes its macros. The virus macro gets control and runs infected procedure. As a result the infected documents have no macro code, but on their opening the virus macro code is loaded by Word97 and executed.

In the known versions of this virus the reference to attached template points to a file on a remote Internet site (virus-writers Web site). As a result, MS Word97 on opening an affected document downloads and processes the template that is placed in the Internet zone. Because of that virus author(s) are able to "upgrade" virus code by replacing the template on their Web site.

This way of spreading allows the virus to bypass the anti-virus protection (VirusWarning) in old versions of MS Word97. These Word97 versions have a security breach: the anti-virus protection is not activated by Word97 to scan attached templates for macro code. This bug in MS Word97 was fixed in the beginning of 1999.

The virus contains the comments:


Active Template Update

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