RE: Windows 98 box is 'owned'

["Bermingham, Bob" <Bob.Bermingham () infrastructuredev com>]

Sounds like the box is "owned", but not in the way you suspect. From
your description, it looks like she is infected with Netsky.P:

http://antivirus.about.com/cs/allabout/a/netskyp.htm

Cheers,

-Bob.

-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Kirby [mailto:bulliver () badcomputer no-ip com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 8:04 PM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Windows 98 box is 'owned'

Hello all,

I am writing this on behalf of my Mom. She was complaining that her
computer 
was sluggish, and that her HD space was getting used up faster than it 
should. So I went over and fired up my trusty Linux live cd and had a
look.

Anyway, I found a directory right in C: named 'Downloads', and inside
were 
about 50 or so files, which were all warez, porn, windows exploits and 
cracker 'howto's. Quite obviously this computer is owned, and is being
used 
as a warez server. I deleted the files, booted win, but they reappeared
after 
about 10 minutes. The strange thing is that these files are ALL 29k, and
all 
have filenames like:

Adobe Photoshop crack.exe
Smashing the Stack.txt.exe
Eminem - full album.mp3.exe
Office 2003 full.exe
...
On further inspection I found an identical directory at
C:/windows/Downloaded 
Program Files/. God only knows how many trojans and other nasties are 
sprinkled around...

So I yanked the power cord out of her adsl modem, and told her not to
plug it 
back in unless she was checking her mail. Bad advice for sure, but try 
telling your mom that her computer is rooted by punk kids and it is too 
cracked to have safe internet access at all. Seems that a complete OS 
reinstall is in order, but it seems to me that if they can own her box
once 
they can own it again just as easy, which leads me to this list...I
would 
like to try some investigating, and try to figure out where the backdoor
is, 
what exactly they are doing...and of course how to prevent it.

Some background on myself...I am a Linux sysadmin, and have a great deal
of 
experience with UNIX operating systems...however, I have never run a
windows 
box, and have only used one in the 'point-and-drool' sort of way. So I
really 
know nothing of how the underlying OS works (or doesn't...). 

So I guess I am just asking for some opinions of the situation, and
perhaps 
some links to docs about this type of attack, and how to prevent it.
Also, 
any software along the lines of chkrootkit or other forensic tools, but
for 
windows would be a big help.

TIA
-d 
-- 
Part of the problem since 1976
http://badcomputer.no-ip.com
Get my public key from 
http://keyserver.linux.it/pks/lookup?op=index&search=bulliver
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more
expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972