Microsoft accidentally distributes virus

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Aj Effin Reznor <aj () reznor com>

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-935994.html?tag=fd_top

By Robert Lemos 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 14, 2002, 10:35 AM PT

update: Microsoft accidentally sent the virulent Nimda worm to South
Korean developers when it distributed Korean-language versions of
Visual Studio .Net that carried the virus, the company acknowledged
Friday.

Microsoft's flagship developer tools picked up the digital pest when a
third-party company translated the program into Korean, said
Christopher Flores, lead product manager for Visual Studio .Net.
Flores stressed that no other foreign-language versions of the program
were found to carry the worm, and he said the worm had not actually
executed on any developers' systems.

"There have been no recorded infections," Flores said. In fact, he
added, it's almost impossible to get the worm to execute on computers
with Visual Studio .Net installed.

The infected file is stored in the same location as the help files,
Flores said, but it's a file created by Nimda, so the .Net program's
help system doesn't know it's there and will never reference--or
open--the file. It's unlikely, then, that Nimda would break loose,
Flores said.

And if the worm did execute somehow, he said, it couldn't spread to
the developer's system because the virus only runs on systems running
Internet Explorer 5.5 and lower, and Visual Studio .Net requires
version 6.0 of the browser.

"It's extremely unlikely that a developer would ever accidentally get
infected by Nimda," said Flores. "They would have to try hard just to
run the worm."

Still, the slip up is yet another stain on Microsoft's reputation as
the company works to convince the public and the tech community that
its products are secure. In a company-wide memo sent last January,
Bill Gates trumpeted a "trustworthy computing initiative," calling on
Microsoft's employees to put security above all else.

Nimda started infecting computers last September and quickly became an
epidemic. However, since October, incidents of the worm have dropped.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant released Visual Studio .Net in
February, and the Korean version made it to market some 90 days ago,
Flores said.

The Korean version of the developer tools picked up Nimda from the
third-party "localization" company Microsoft hired to translate the
program's help system into Korean. That company had already been
infected by Nimda and spread the virus to the help tools, which gained
an extra, infected file.

Flores said that under Microsoft's security policy, the company
normally scans every file being transferred to the master of a
program. But in this case, the company only analyzed files it expected
to find. Since the Nimda-infected file had been added by the worm, the
company overlooked it.

"We have been (scanning all files) in every one of our geographies,"  
Flores said. "There was a loophole in our Korean side that caused us
to miss files that we didn't expect to be there."

It wasn't until a Microsoft employee was adding the help documentation
to the software giant's developer Web site that the worm was found.  
"We have to go through a conversion process to an online HTML format,"  
said Flores. "During that process we found an extra file hanging
around."

Microsoft has notified all its registered Korean customers, and the
company posted a patch to its Web site Thursday night. It also plans
to send clean copies of the program to every registered customer free
of charge and is attempting to contact developers who may have bought
the product but not registered it.




-
ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org

To unsubscribe email majordomo () attrition org with 'unsubscribe isn'
in the BODY of the mail.