Re: Virus/Trojan/Worm in the Dorms

[David Gillett <gillettdavid () FHDA EDU>]

  It sounds like traffic to that Romanian DNS server would be a useful thing
to block and monitor for.  Anybody got the IP address?
 
David Gillett

  _____  

From: Rob Whalen [mailto:rwhalen () STMARYS-CA EDU] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 07:51
To: SECURITY () listserv educause edu
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Virus/Trojan/Worm in the Dorms



It is a good thing we subnetted our resnet down to the jack. Hopefully that
will save us. Each port gets 5 addresses.

Rob Whalen,

Network Analyst, St Marys College

 

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
[mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Tim Fairlie
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 7:25 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Virus/Trojan/Worm in the Dorms

 

Hey Allen, 

Any idea how those folks made out with this outbreak?
Our kids moved in yesterday and we saw the same thing. We've been able to
stop it from spreading, but cleaning the infected machines has so far been a
lengthy task.

Was wondering if you knew how they've addressed it


Tim

Timothy J. Fairlie - Director
Network/User/Telecommunication Services (N.U.T.S)
Rider University                fairlie () rider edu 

----- "Allen Wood" <awood () HILLCOLLEGE EDU> wrote: 
>

> I'm sending this on behalf of a neighboring college.  It looks like they
need help in a pretty bad way... here's their message-
> ****************
>
> We've got a bit of a mess here - not quite sure how we're going to deal
with it.  We contract with AT&T to provide internet service in our dorms.
We don't provide tech support to our students for  their personal computers.
Even if that weren't our policy, two techs can't provide technical support
to 900 kids (not to mention the other 1900 computers we have that are spread
over 4 different campuses).
> This trojan turns computers into rogue DHCP servers - once the bad IP
address has been handed out to a computer on the network, it's then pointed
to a bad DNS server - that in turn sends the computer to a website in
Romania that displays a web page stating that the browser is out of date and
provided a link to an executable file that is supposed to update the brower
- and that executable then infects another computer.  It appears we're
dealing with a variant of Rorpian.A.
> At this point, the network in our dorms isn't operational - it's
impossible to connect to the valid DHCP server because there are so many
infected computers now.  We don't have any system in place to log or track
computers - so even though we can run Wireshark and see the traffic, we have
no way of tracking that back to an individual to try to eliminate the rogue
servers.  In addition, we've had an ongoing problem with residents of the
apartment complex across the street (not associated with us) using our
wireless network - and odds are, they're now infected as well.
> We've tried 4 different anti-virus/malware products and none have seemed
to work as far as cleaning the computers that we deliberately infected in an
attempt to find a solution.  So far now, we have our dorm network shut down
entirely to prevent further infection - and we have 900 furious students.
> We don't have  the manpower to offer to format these student computers -
and even if we did have enough people, and were willing to accept the
liability, we wouldn't be able to put their software back on.  We're also
not comfortable with "suggesting" that the students take their computers to
a PC repair shop (even though that's probably the only answer) for the same
reason.   Even at that, if one rogue server is still out there, we're going
to have the issue again once we turn the network back on.  And what if that
rogue server is in the apartment complex that we have no control over?
> Anyone have any ideas on how to combat this?  We've been banging our heads
against the wall for two days now and admit we may not even be thinking
clearing any more.  At the moment we can't think of a way out of this.  Any
suggestions would be welcome.
> Probably the good news out of all of it is that this will probably either
cause the maintaining of the dorm internet to be outsourced, or we'll get
the equipment we need to manage it properly.  In the meantime, though,
that's not going to help us.
>

*******************
> I'll be happy to forward on any suggestions or ideas that you may have.
>
> Thanks in advance,

  

Allen
>