http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/22347.html By John Leyden Posted: 18/10/2001 at 16:56 GMT It's hardly likely to fool anyone but virus writers have once again taken to disguising viruses in emails purporting to give security patches from Microsoft. First things first: Microsoft NEVER distributes patches by email, it sends digitally signed email alerts which details where patches can be downloaded from its site. That aside Microsoft is hardly likely to originate an email with the title "FW: Terrorist Emergency. Latest virus can wipe disk in minutes" or "FW: IT departments on state of HIGH ALERT", or one of eight other variants detailed in full here. The email, which contains an attachment containing malicious code, will come forwarded to you with a message along the lines of "Just recieved [sic] this in my email. I have contacted Microsoft and they say it's real !". Again a dead give away and anybody with any sense will hopefully have deleted the message even before this point. In another variant of what is been christened the Redesi worm, the infection bearing email will come with a message such as "Kev Gives great orgasms to ladeez!! -- Kev" or "A new type of Lager / Weed variant...... sorted !", or (you guessed it) eight other variants. These virus-borne emails will come with a message body along the lines of " heh. I tell ya this is nuts ! You gotta check it out !" In both its "Microsoft alert" or more salacious variants, the Ramen mass mailer would be carried in an executable attachment (Si.exe, ReDe.exe, Disk.exe, Common.exe or UserConf.exe etc.) - yet another reason to filter out executable attachments in email. Redesi, in both its variants, carries a nasty payload, so its just as well it isn't spreading. For the record, if you're daft enough to open an infected attachment on a windows PC Redesi will use Outlook to email copies of itself to all the contacts in your address book. On November 11, Redesi attempts to run a payload routine which writes a command to an AUTOEXEC.BAT file that launches disk formatting, with the idea of wiping a victim's c: drive when he next starts up a computer. Nasty. Antivirus vendors are in the process of updating their software to detect Redesi and protection is largely in place. [ http://www.kaspersky.com/news.asp?tnews=0&nview=1&id=244&page=0 ] - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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