Re: Conflicker/NMAP

["Harry E Flowers (flowers)" <flowers () MEMPHIS EDU>]

I have to disagree with your parenthetical statement on #2... patching is necessary even if you can protect the boot 
image.  Some attacks take place in memory and you'll boot a nice clean system only to have it become infected because 
it wasn't patched.  Also, solutions that allow changes to the disk but revert them on reboot are susceptible to this 
for disk-based infections.  Sure, you only have to reboot to get rid of it, but you're also still open to immediate 
re-infection until you unlock the image, patch it, and re-lock it (all of which needs to be done off the network once 
you've gotten behind on patching).  Patching is not optional if the system is on a network or even has other media 
(like thumb drives or CD's) inserted occasionally, which is another way Conficker (see, I got back to something related 
to the subject line ;-)) spreads.
--
Harry Flowers
Manager, Systems Software
Information Technology Division
The University of Memphis


From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Dennis 
Meharchand
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 10:30 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Conflicker/NMAP

Believing that Anti Virus/Endpoint Security Solutions can reliably detect known malware is itself a false positive.
In a recent comprehensive test on known malware Symantec failed 17.6% of the time and McAfee 22.3% of the time - they 
failed to detect malware that they knew about.

We can assume that they fail near 100% of the time on new unknown malware.

Here's a revised mitigation list:

1.       Lock it up (the boot image) to eliminate drive by attacks

2.       Patch (not that necessary if 1. Is done but still a good thing)

3.       Endpoint Software Solutions (mostly do nothing but makes folks feel good) - occasional full disk scan may have 
some benefit

Dennis Meharchand
CEO, Valt.X Technologies Inc.
Cell: 416-618-4622
Tel: 1-800-361-0067, 416-746-6669
Fax: 416-746-2774
Email: dennis () valtx com
Web: www.valtx.com

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Jerry 
Sell
Sent: March 31, 2009 10:50 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Conflicker/NMAP

There are three things that mitigate the Confickr worm.


1.       Up to date Virus protection. All of the major vendors and most of the small vendors have signatures that will 
detect and remove Confickr.

2.       Up to date patches or blocking for port 445.

3.       Having autorun disabled for USB devices.

We have not detected anything so far using the scs scanner, but we have all three of these in place.

Thank you,

Jerry Sell, CISSP
Security Analyst
Brigham Young University
(801)422-2730
Jerry_Sell () byu edu<mailto:Jerry_Sell () byu edu>


From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Harris, 
Michael C.
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 8:27 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Conflicker/NMAP

Using both the Python scs scanner and the Nmap method we have had unbelievable results as well.  Enough to make me 
question both scanning methods.  I have not yet infected a machine in quarantine and scanned it to prove the false 
negative. if I can prove that either way I'll post again later today.

Mike
University of Missouri

________________________________
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of 
Consolvo, Corbett D
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 9:22 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Conflicker/NMAP
I realize many folks may not want to answer this, but has anyone had many positives/infections with the released nmap 
scan for Conflicker?  So far we seem to be coming up clean and many other folks I've talked to or emailed with have 
come up clean as well.  I'm just concerned about the possibility of false negatives.  Of course, the problem may not be 
particularly wide-spread except in the eyes of some media outlets.

Thanks,
Corbett Consolvo
Texas State University