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- F-MACROW
-
- F-MACROW is a 16-bit Windows application. It has been tested
- successfully under Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95 and Windows
- NT (3.51 and 4.0 beta 2), although it should work under plain Windows
- 3.1 as well. It does not work under DOS - but then, if you do not run
- Windows the you do not have to worry about these viruses anyhow.
-
- 1. Installation.
-
- To install F-MACROW, follow the simple procedure described below. (Future
- versions will include an automatic installation program.)
-
- 1) Copy the file CTL3DV2.DLL to your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, if it is
- not there already (the file is probably already in place). DO NOT keep a
- copy of CTL3DV2.DLL in the same directory where F-MACROW.EXE resides or
- you'll get an error message that the DLL is not properly installed.
-
- 2) The program needs the file OLE2.DLL in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory
- too. However, if this file is not already on your system, WinWord 6.x or
- above will not run, so macro viruses are not your concern.
-
- 3) Copy the files F-MACROW.EXE and MACRO.DEF in some directory (e.g.,
- in the same directory where you have installed F-PROT). It doesn't
- matter where they are placed but both of them must be in the same directory.
-
- 4) Create an item in some Program Manager group and make it point to the
- file F-MACROW.EXE. (Alternatively, if you are using Windows 95, simply
- drag the file from the Explorer and drop it on the desktop.)
-
-
- 2. Using F-MACROW.
-
- Once you have installed the required files you can launch the program by
- double-clicking the F-MACROW icon. Windows 95 users can also launch it
- from the DOS prompt in a DOS box.
-
- The program interface is very simple. The user clicks on the Scan button to
- start the scanning. This brings up a dialog box, where the user can select
- scanning options.
-
- The following options are available:
-
- Scan directory - Selects the directory to be scanned.
- What to scan - Selects whether to scan files with standard extensions
- for Word and Excel (*.DOC, *.DOT, *.XL?), or whether to
- scan files with any extension.
- Scan Subdirectories - Whether to scan the subdirectories of the specified
- directory.
- If a virus is found - Specifies what action should be taken if a virus is
- found. The following options are available:
- - Report only. Just reports the virus.
- - Ask each time. The user will be asked each time
- if the file should be disinfected.
- - Disinfect automatically. The virus will be
- automatically removed.
- Report all scanned
- documents - Normally the program will report only the files in
- which a virus is found. If this option is checked,
- all scanned files will be reported.
- Report file - Check this option if you wish to save the report to a
- file, and use the next two fields to specify the name
- of the report file and whether the new report should
- overwrite an already existing file or append to it.
-
- When the desired options have been selected, press the OK button to start
- the scan. The scanning can be stopped by pressing ESC or clicking the Stop
- button.
-
- To exit the program click on the Exit button.
-
- 3. Known problems.
-
- - The Gangsterz virus is not disinfected perfectly: after disinfection,
- the user has to open every disinfected document with Word, select
- Tools/Customize/Keyboard/Reset All, and save the document back to
- disk. This is because the virus makes somewhat unusual modifications
- to the documents it infects. We know how to make the disinfection
- perfect but just didn't have the time to implement it for this
- release - the virus appeared just a couple of days before it.
-
- - F-MACROW causes a GPF when scanning some documents. This is not our
- problem. The documents are corrupted and Word (or any other
- OLE2-enabled application) will crash when opening them too. The bug is
- in Microsoft's STORAGE.DLL. A future version of F-MACROW will avoid
- using this DLL.
-
- - F-MACROW scans only OLE2 files. As a consequence, it will not detect
- WordMacro viruses or Trojans in Word 2.0 documents. The format of
- these documents is different than the format of the documents
- produced by Word 6.0 and above, especially concerning the macro
- structures. Microsoft still has not provided us with information
- about these differences. If you don't like that F-MACROW cannot scan
- for Word 2.0 viruses - complain to Microsoft.
-
- - The user interface of F-MACROW is still rather rough and simplistic.
- It cannot be run without user interaction, it cannot be told to scan
- more than one subdirectory tree at a time, its window cannot be
- resized, the on-line help has not been implemented yet and so on. All
- this will be gradually fixed in the future versions.
-
- - F-MACROW is a Windows application. It does not run under DOS. Please
- use F-MACROW to scan and disinfect macro viruses - *NOT* F-PROT. If
- F-PROT and F-MACROW disagree on whether a document is infected or
- not - trust F-MACROW, not F-PROT. Please stop asking us to implement
- F-MACROW's capabilities in F-PROT - this is not going to happen. The
- OLE2 files in which Word 6.0 and above stores its documents have an
- incredibly complex structure - in fact, they are whole file systems
- in a file; with their FATs, root directory, subdirectories (called
- "storages") and files (called "streams"). F-MACROW uses the standard
- DLLs available in every Windows installation to parse the structure of
- these files. Microsoft has provided us with the source of most of the
- important functions in these DLLs but they are huge - about 150 Kb
- when compiled. There is simply no space to put them in F-PROT. This
- is why F-PROT does not understand the format of these files and
- simply scans them for a scan string. This is slow, insecure, and
- troublesome. It is slow because F-PROT cannot use its modern virus
- locating algorithms which are applicable only for executable files.
- It is insecure because a stream in the OLE2 file system can become
- fragmented just like a file in the DOS file system - parts of it
- which are logically consequent can be physically scattered all over
- the OLE2 file. In practice this means that, if the fragmentation
- occurs in the middle of the code which F-PROT uses as a scan string,
- the scanner will not detect the virus. Admittedly, the probability
- for this to happen is extremely low - but it is greater than zero
- nevertheless and we cannot permit ourselves to provide an insecure
- anti-virus program to our customers. Finally, F-PROT's method of
- handling macro viruses is troublesome, because when some scanners
- (e.g., Microsoft's SCANPROT) delete the macros of a macro virus, they
- just mark them as deleted but leave the "dead body" of the virus
- lying on the unused parts of the OLE2 file. Since F-PROT has no
- knowledge of the OLE2 file structure, it cannot figure out that these
- parts are unused and the virus in them is never executed. Therefore,
- it can cause ghost positives - if it finds the scan strings of some
- deleted macro virus there. All this will force us to remove macro
- virus support from F-PROT.EXE in the near future. The users should
- use F-MACROW instead. If they consider using two scanners instead of
- one too much of an inconvenience, they should buy the Professional
- version of F-PROT for Windows - it has no memory problems, so it can
- have scanning for both kinds of viruses in the same program.
-
- If any bugs are found, please report them to bontchev@complex.is, and if
- you have any suggestions for improvements - feel free to e-mail to the
- above address.
-
- 4. Version history.
-
- Version 1.01:
-
- - The report file changed to indicate how many infected files are still
- left, how many files have been disinfected, and whether the user has
- aborted the scanning process.
-
- - A newer version of CTL3DV2.DLL included and the documentation
- describing the installation process - updated.
-
- - Some documents were reported as causing "Critical error". Fixed.
-
- - Added detection, recognition, identification and removal for the
- following new macro viruses:
-
- Atom.B
- Bandung
- Colors.E
- Gangsterz
- Hassle
- Nuclear.C
- Wazzu.E
- Wazzu.F
-
- Version 1.00 (Beta):
-
- First version released for public testing.
-
- 5. List of viruses detected by F-MACROW.
-
- FormatC (Trojan)
- Reflex.Dropper (Trojan)
- Laroux (Excel)
- Aliance
- Atom.A
- Atom.B
- Bandung
- Boom:De
- Buero:De
- Colors.A
- Colors.B
- Colors.C
- Colors.D
- Colors.E
- Clock:De
- Concept.A
- Concept.B:Fr
- Concept.C
- Concept.D
- Concept.E
- Concept.F
- Concept.G
- Concept.H
- Date
- Dietzel:De
- Divina
- DMV
- Doggie
- Friendly:De
- Gangsterz
- Goldfish
- Guess
- Hassle
- Hot
- Imposter.A
- Imposter.B
- Irish
- KillDLL
- LBYNJ:De
- MadDog
- MDMA
- NF
- NOP.A:De
- NOP.B:De
- Npad
- Nuclear.A
- Nuclear.B
- Nuclear.C
- PCW:De
- Pheeew:NL
- Polite
- Reflex
- Satanic
- Tedious
- Wazzu.A
- Wazzu.B
- Wazzu.C
- Wazzu.D
- Wazzu.E
- Wazzu.F
- Xenixos:De
-