RE: DCOM worm analysis report: W32.Blaster.Worm

From: Andrew Thomas (andrewat_private)
Date: Tue Aug 12 2003 - 01:11:03 PDT

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    > From: Dave Ahmad [mailto:daat_private]
    > Sent: 11 August 2003 11:36
    > Subject: DCOM worm analysis report: W32.Blaster.Worm
    > 
    .. https://tms.symantec.com/members/AnalystReports/030811-Alert-DCOMworm.pdf
    ..
    
    If the information contained herein is still correct, then it would appear that the algorithm used for target IP selection is far from optimal, and 
    would result in large concentration of traffic around the IP address ranges 
    of the initial infections.
    
    While this is probably a bad thing for those concerned, this should at least 
    buy the rest of the 'net some time to bunker down and ensure that their 
    systems get patched. Unfortunately, scare situations like this may be the 
    only way to get most of the machines patched.
    
    Also, if this 80/20 rule for OS selection applies (80% XP, 20% win2k), then 
    a lot of countries that are still predominantly running windows 2000 will 
    experience a slower infection rate. I haven't run any figures to determine 
    exactly what the difference will be, but given that here in South Africa, 
    out of a web server version list of 100k odd machines, IIS/5.0 was vastly 
    predominant, it would make some difference at least.
    
    Q: Does the exploit use shellcode that includes a call to ExitThread or the 
    like, such as *not* to take down the RPC service? 
    
    From the comment about the mutex lock, it would appear that there is some 
    expectation of a reinfection, so I'd guess that that was the case. Still, I'd 
    like confirmation. If the RPC service got taken down, then I'm sure that a lot 
    of sysadmin's would notice a lot more quickly.
    
    --
    Andrew G. Thomas
    Hobbs & Associates Chartered Accountants (SA)
    (o) +27-(0)21-683-0500
    (f) +27-(0)21-683-0577
    (m) +27-(0)83-318-4070 
    
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