Virus.MSWord.Melissa-based

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 macro virus is another "Melissa" clone. It infects MS Word document and templates, and sends its copies in e-mail messages using an MS Outlook application. The virus is an extremely fast infector: its e-mail spreading routine may send many infected documents to different e-mail addresses when the virus installs itself into the system. The virus also has a trigger routine, changes the system registry, and disables Word macro-virus protection.

To send its copies in e-mail messages, the virus uses VisualBasic abilities to activate other Microsoft applications and use their routines: the virus gets access to MS Outlook and calls its functions. The virus gets the addresses from the Outlook database and sends to them a new message. This massage has:

The subject: "Fun and games from [UserName]" (UserName is variable)

Message body: "Hi! Check out this neat doc I found on the Internet!"

The message also has an attached document (needless to say that it is infected) - the virus attaches the document that is being edited now (active document). As a side effect of this way of spreading, the user's documents (including confidential ones) can be sent out to the Internet.

The virus can send many messages: it scans the Outlook AddressBook (address database), opens each list in it and sends up to 69 messages to addresses from each one. If a list has less than 69 entries (e-mail addresses), all of them are infected. The virus sends one message per each list, and the TO: field in the message contains all addresses from this list (up to 69), and can be rejected by anti-spam filters. In addition, it sends another message to address "Project1@nym.alias.net" This massage has:

The subject: "Guess whos infected: [UserName]" (UserName is variable)

Message body: "infected!"

This message also has an attached document that is being edited now.

The virus sends infected e-mails only one time. Before sending, the virus checks the system registry for its ID stamp:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOfficeP1 = "Syndicate"

If this entry does not exist, the virus sends e-mails from an infected computer, and then creates this entry in the registry. Otherwise, the virus jumps over the e-mail routine. As a result, the virus sends infected e-mail messages only once: on the next attempt, it locates the "P1=" entry, and skips it.

The virus is able to spread to Office2000 (Word ver.9) documents. This possibility is based on an Office "convertation" feature. When new a Office version opens and loads documents and templates created by previous Word versions, it converts data in documents to new formats. The macro-program in files is also converted, including the virus macros. As a result, the virus is able to replicate itself under Office2000.

The virus code contains one module with one auto-function in "Document_Close". The virus infects the global macros area upon infected-document closing, and spreads to other documents upon their closing. To infect documents and templates, the virus copies its code from an infected object to a victim one.

The virus has the comments:

W97M/Project1 by Patient Zero -(The Syndicate)- circa 1999
The Syndicate: underground to the underground.
Greets to Kwyjibo and the CodeBreakers: Hey, dont we know each other? ;-)

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