Trend Micro Virus Report - September 2001 Issue #1

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V I R U S R E P O R T
    
(by the Trend Micro US Virus Research Group)
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Date: September 6, 2001 Issue Number: 09/01
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If you're a corporate user and want to assess your virus protection,
check out Trend Micro's Virus Risk Assessment Web site at:
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Issue Preview:

1. TREND MICRO UPDATES: Pattern File and Scan Engine Updates
2. Another Email Worm - TROJ_APOST.A (Medium Risk)
3. MAGISTR Strikes Again - PE_MAGISTR.B (Medium Risk)
4. 10 Most Prevalent In-the-Wild Malware Surveyed by Trend Micro US
5. Top 10 Viruses Trend Micro's US Customers are Most Concerned About
6. Test Your Virus Knowledge & Scan Your Computer FREE!

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1. TREND MICRO UPDATES: Pattern File and Scan Engine Updates
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PATTERN FILE: 935 http://www.antivirus.com/download/pattern.asp
SCAN ENGINE: 5.450 http://www.antivirus.com/download/engines/

2. TROJ_APOST.A - TROJ_APOST.A (Medium Risk)
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This worm propagates via Microsoft Outlook by emailing itself as an attachment to all addresses listed in the infected user's address book. It sends email four times to each address and copies itself to all local drives of an infected system.

It arrives in an email with the subject line: "As per your request!" with the attachment "README.EXE".

This worm has been classified as medium risk.

For additional information about TROJ_APOST.A, please visit Trend Micro at:
http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=TROJ_APOST.A

TROJ_APOST.A is detected and cleaned by Trend Micro pattern file #933.

3. MAGISTR Strikes Again - PE_MAGISTR.B (Medium Risk)
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PE_MAGISTR.B is a per-process, memory-resident, and polymorphic virus that installs itself in memory via the EXPLORER.EXE process. It uses SMTP commands to send emails to addresses it obtains from *.WAB, *.DBX, and *.MBX files found in the infected system's disk. It uses its infected files and other non-viral files as attachment to the emails it sends out. The non-viral file types include image files (.GIF), documents (.DOC), and text files (.TXT).

This variant uses text found in documents and text files of the infected system for the subject and body of its email. The attachments may have .COM, .BAT, and .PIF extension names, and because the worm uses the Blind Carbon Copy field when sending email (or "BCC:"), its emails have an empty "To:" field.

This virus is capable of searching for all local drives, mapped network drives, and shared directories that have full-access privileges, therefore it can infect an entire local network. It searches for the occurrence of certain directories and infects .EXE and .SCR files contained within.

When the virus payload activates, the virus attempts to find the NTLDR file on the root drive, and WIN.COM file in the Windows directory, and overwrites them with a small Trojan program that trashes the hard drive using direct manipulation of the primary hard disk controller.

This file-infecting virus has been upgraded from low risk to medium risk due to an increasing number of infections.

For additional information about PE_MAGISTR.B, please visit Trend Micro at:
http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=PE_MAGISTR.B

PE_MAGISTR.B is detected and cleaned by Trend Micro pattern file #935.

4. 10 Most Prevalent In-The-Wild Malware Surveyed by Trend Micro US
(week of: August 27, 2001 to September 2, 2001)
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1. TROJ_SIRCAM.A
2. PE_MAGISTR.DAM
3. TROJ_HAI.A
4. TROJ_BLKSTONE.A
5. VBS_HAPTIME.A
6. PE_MAGISTR.A
7. TROJ_BADTRANS.A
8. TROJ_NEWPIC.A
9. VBS_LOVELETTR.AS
10.TROJ_BYMER

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5. Top 10 Viruses Trend Micro's US Customers are Most Concerned About
(where systems were not infected)
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1. TROJ_SIRCAM.A
2. TROJ_RULES.A
3. TROJ_SPYBOY.B
4. VBS_HAPTIME.A
5. PE_CIH
6. JS_KAKWORM.A
7. TROJ_NEWPIC.A
8. TROJ_FUNSO.A
9. TROJ_HAI.A
10.PE_FUNLOVE.DAM

6. Test Your Virus Knowledge & Scan Your Computer FREE!
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Received on Thu, 6 Sep 2001 14:40:39 -0700