http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/23673.html By John Leyden Posted: 14/01/2002 at 19:49 GMT Last week, antivirus vendors exposed Donut, supposedly the world's first .Net virus. Only it isn't a. NET virus, Microsoft argues. Donut is simply a native executable that elects to modify only applications written for the Microsoft .NET Framework in the Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) PE format, the software firm says. "In fact, the method of infection is the same as many much older viruses, and it is detected by anti-virus software as a much older loader virus," Microsoft states in an open letter on the subject. Rob Rosenberger, editor of , the definitive chronicler of the hype and hysteria which envelops computer security, supports Microsoft's assessment. Donut would be better termed an "executable wrapper" than a .NET virus, he says. "If you can envelop a .ZIP file within a self-extractor .EXE module, then OF COURSE you can do the same with a .NET file. "It appears the author relied heavily on assembler, plus some C code, plus a token amount of MSIL. The author went to some rather impressive lengths to envelop a .Net file within a non-.NET module." Describing Donut as the first .NET virus was like "like using the term 'woman' to describe a male cross-dresser", Rosenberger argues. Jack Clark, product marketing manager for the McAfee division of Network Associates, said since Donut affected only machines with .NET installed and Win32 machines it was reasonable to describe it as a .NET virus. He agreed with Microsoft's assessment of the low threat posed by Donut but maintained that its existence was "proof of concept" that .NET might be used maliciously. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 15 2002 - 16:47:38 PST