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- **********************************************
- The CryPt Newsletter: another in an occasional
- series!
- **********************************************
-
-
- NEWS! NEWS! NEWS!
-
- It's been an exciting summer at the Crypt! With the procure-
- ment of Nowhere Man's Virus Creation Laboratory, virus researchers
- have much to do.
-
- The VCL is a revolutionary tool: an automated interface which
- puts a comprehensive viral assembly library into the hands of
- those who can benefit by it most. Unlike the Mutation Engine
- which has proven itself a thorny, un-user friendly development
- with small utility (within two weeks of its widespread release,
- most anti-virus scanners had been adjusted to catch it), the
- VCL allows the determined virus programmer to create an almost
- infinite variety of novel and troublesome programs, limited only
- by his patience, dedication and imagination. Fuckin'-A! The
- VCL is fun!
-
- Preliminary study of the VCL by anti-virus researchers have
- prompted some to declare on the FidoNet virus echo that VCL
- code will be easily countered.
-
- This is premature and easily defied. F-PROT, one of the most efficient
- of the current crop of scanners CAN detect some VCL variants
- in "Secure Scan" and "Heuristic" mode. However, "Secure Scan"
- findings are easily patched by incorporation of encryption
- routines in the raw code and "trapping" of the nascent virus
- body in a small custom-made .COM 'host' shell.* In "heuristic"
- mode, F-PROT is dangerous - BUT only when the user 'knows' what
- he is looking for! In my experience, few users will even attempt
- to use a "heuristic" mode on a regular basis. The reasons are
- these: 1) 'Heuristic"+ is a big word and, so, it must be hard to
- use (stupid, I know, but true!); and 2) The false positive rate
- requires some interpretation (Lazy fucks deserve to be parasitized
- by viruses - .Ed).
-
- The same can be said for THUNDERBYTE's TBSCAN
- which implements an even more aggressive form of heuristic
- scanning. Interpretation of shakey files is easy "when"
- the user knows what he is looking for,
- more problemmatical when flying blind. In addition,
- TBSCAN isn't particularly user-friendly which means most potential
- targets of viral attack won't have it in their arsenal. (Thank the
- general level of incompetence in American society for this. Virology
- is as much sociology as assembly, I say.)
-
- *[This is a simple stunt which suggested itself after reading
- Mark Ludwig's "The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses"
- (American Eagle Publishing, Tucson, AZ)]
-
- +['Heuristic' - all you have to know is that 'heuristic' means
- F-PROT scans for certain 'patterns' of machine instruction:
- resident services, self-modification, weird jump intructions,
- discontinuous code sequences, garbage instructions, strange
- memory entrance, illegal writes or formats to the
- disk, etc.]
-
- IN THE MEAT OF THIS ISSUE:
-
- Two VCL-produced virus source-codes: DIARRHEA and DIARRHE6, which
- demonstrate one of the nicer features of the VCL, ANSI screen
- development and "dropper" routines.
-
- DIARRHEA can be assembled with TASM and linked in the standard
- manner. Place the assembled file on a floppy with SHELLT.COM
- [Included in this newsletter]. Ensure that SHELLT is in a different
- directory for quickest results. Call the virus and it will
- promptly infect the shell. This allows the encryption engine to
- turn once and supplies the virus in a form easily introduced into the
- wild.
-
- Now for the interesting part: DIARRHEA is an appending virus
- which displays a BIG ANSI every Friday. It goes
- something like this: EAT MY DIARRHEA - GG Allin & The Texas
- Nazis. It's a real attention grabber and since DIARRHEA really
- doesn't do anything but that, it's got an even chance of
- spreading rather nicely before someone gets surprised by
- the ANSI. At which point they could go berserk. Hahaha.
- [I know, I have a juvenile sense of humor.]
-
- DIARRHE6 is for those more impatient to see immediate results.
- DIARRHE6 'drops' a TheDraw prepared .COMfile onto all .EXE
- files in the virus's path of infection. This, in effect,
- destroys the original program and replaces it with the
- BIG ANSI which displays the hated EAT MY DIARRHEA message.
- In truth, DIARRHE6 will be noticed fast since .EXE files
- are eaten up by the ANSI substitute rather quickly. Don't
- expect it to spread too far, although there is the chance that
- an inexperienced user will be drawn into thinking that the
- destroyed .EXE's are actually infected with a
- over-writing virus.
-
- To make this potential a little more polished, I've included
- an optional modification for DIARRHE6. I've prepared a
- fragment of the WHALE virus in 'define byte' form
- in the included file, VIRUS1.DAT. Use your favorite
- text editor to replace the ANSI data table at offset
- DATA01 in DIARRHE6.ASM with VIRUS1.DAT JUST AS THE FILE IS WRITTEN.
-
- Then assemble.
-
- This will produce a virus which drops a WHALE string
- onto .EXE's in its path, instead of the motorized ANSI.
- When the victim goes to use a scanner on his damaged files,
- he'll find the WHALE or, possibly, a DIR string. Scarey!!!
- While he's offhunting for this new strain of WHALE, your modified
- version of DIARRHE6 could still be going strong.
-
- [Actually, I'm sure you see the potential here. You could
- actually drop an entirely different virus onto the file,
- causing a more serious secondary infection.]
-
- Remember that you'll want to let the modified DIARRHE6 infect
- SHELLT.COM before you release it so that it encrypts itself and
- the embedded WHALE string. This way, it won't scan for
- WHALE until the string is 'dropped.' When you assemble this
- you will notice the text "Eddie lives . . . somewhere in time!
- Written in the city of Sofia, Bulgaria." in the un-encrypted
- virus. Yup, it's loosely cribbed from DARK AVENGER even though
- the 'dropped' table scans predominantly as WHALE. I put it
- there to confuse things even more. When the victim executes
- the .EXE this file has been dropped on, the phrase from
- the DARK AVENGER (or CRAZY EDDIE) will display. Hahahah!
- More confusion! (You can rip it out if you don't like it;
- be my guest.) Other scanners may identify the dropped string
- as DIR (THUNDERBYTE does) or SPARSE, which is fine. You see, I had
- so much fun with the idea I couldn't resist stuffing all
- kinds of psychologically troubling nonsense into VIRUS1.DAT.
-
- And, you will need TASM or MASM to fully utilize these listings.
-
- IN CONCLUSION:
-
- Do yourself a big favor and find the VCL. Nowhere Man's creation
- is quite a pleasure to use, allowing your wildest creative
- juices to flow.
-
- CONFUSION TO YOUR ENEMIES!
-
- -URNST KOUCH
- DARK COFFIN BBS 215-966-3576
- VIRUS_MAN BBS 215-PRI-VATE
-
- This issue of the CryPt newsletter should contain:
- DIARRHE4.ASM - the source listing to DIARRHEA virus
- DIARRHE6.ASM - the source listing to DIARRHE6 virus
- SHELLT.COM - a helpful shell for initial infection trapping
- VIRUS1.DAT - a 'define byte' table for a dummy COMfile
- which contains WHALE & DIR virus signature strings as well
- as text from CRAZY EDDIE virus.
- CRPT.LTR - this newsletter
- If it doesn't, DEMAND UPGRADE!!! heh-heh, a little joke.
-