22-01-2010, 03:54 PM
[attachment=1340]
[attachment=1341]
[attachment=1342]
ABSTRACT
Viruses: A virus is basically an executable file which is designed such
that first of all it should be able to infect documents, then it has to
have the ability to survive by replicating itself and then it should
also be able to avoid detection.
Computer viruses can be classified into several different types.
File or program viruses: They infect program files like files
with extensions like .EXE, .COM, .BIN, .DRV and .SYS. Some file viruses
just replicate while others destroy the program being used at that
time. Boot Sector Viruses (MBR or Master Boot Record): Boot sector
viruses can be created without much difficulty and infect either the
Master boot record of the hard disk or the floppy drive. Polymorphic
Viruses: They are the most difficult viruses to detect. They have the
ability to mutate this means that they change the viral code known as
the signature each time it spreads or infects etc.
Antiviruses: The ideal solution to the threat of viruses is
prevention. Do not allow a virus is get into the system in first place.
This goal is in general difficult to achieve, although prevention can
reduce the no: of successful viral attacks. The next best approach is
to be able to do the following.
¢ Detection, Identification, Removal.
Basic techniques are
Scanners: Scanners are programs that scan the executable objects (files
and boot sectors) for the presence of code sequences that are present
in the known viruses.
Monitors: The monitoring programs are memory resident programs, which
constantly monitor some functions of the operating system.
Integrity Checking: A program, which can detect that the other
executable objects have been modified, will be able to detect the
infection. Such programs are usually called integrity checkers.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the mid-eighties, so legend has it, the Amjad brothers of Pakistan
ran a computer store. Frustrated by computer piracy, they wrote the
first computer virus, a boot sector virus called Brain. From those
simple beginnings, an entire counter-culture industry of virus creation
and distribution emerged, leaving us today with several tens of
thousands of viruses. In just over a decade, most of us have been
familiar with the term computer virus.
A large portion of modern computing life is to secure the information
that we are creating and processing. There are many aspects of
information security, ranging from physical access to ensuring that the
information has not been changed in any way. One of the most high-
profile threats to information integrity is the computer virus.
Surprisingly, PC viruses have been around for two-thirds of the IBM
PCâ„¢s lifetime, appearing in 1986. With global computing on the rise,
computer viruses have had more visibility in the past two years.
Despite our awareness of computer viruses, how many of us can define
what one is, or how it infects computers? This seminar aims to
demystify the basics of computer viruses, summarizing what they are,
how they attack and what we can do to protect ourselves against them.
2. VIRUSES
2.1 THE BASICS OF COMPUTER VIRUSES
Computer viruses are not inherently destructive. The essential feature
of a computer program that causes it to be classified as a virus is not
its ability to destroy data, but its ability to gain control of the
computer and make a fully functional copy of itself. It can reproduce.
When it is executed, it makes one or more copies of itself. Those
copies may later be executed, to create still more copies, ad
infinitum. Not all computer programs that are destructive are
classified as viruses because they do not all reproduce, and not all
viruses are destructive because reproduction is not destructive.
However, all viruses do reproduce. The computer virus overcomes the
roadblock of operator control by hiding itself in other programs. Thus
it gains access to the CPU simply because people run programs that it
happens to have attached itself to without their knowledge. A computer
virus attaches itself to other programs earned it the name virus.
However that analogy is wrong since the programs it attaches to are not
in any sense alive.
Virus: What exactly is a Virus?
A virus is basically an executable file which is designed such that
first of all it should be able to infect documents, then it has to have
the ability to survive by replicating itself and then it should also be
able to avoid detection. Usually to avoid detection, a Virus disguises
itself as a legitimate program which the user would not normally
suspect to be a Virus. Viruses are designed to corrupt or delete data
on the hard disk i.e. on the FAT (File Allocation Table).
2.2 TYPES OF VIRUSES
Computer viruses can be classified into several different types.
1. File or program viruses:
Some programs are viruses in disguise, when executed they load the
virus in the memory along with the program and perform the predefined
steps and infect the system. They infect program files like files with
extensions like .EXE, .COM , .BIN , .DRV and .SYS. Some file viruses
just replicate while others destroy the program being used at that
time.
2. Boot Sector Viruses (MBR or Master Boot Record)
Boot sector viruses can be created without much difficulty and infect
either the Master boot record of the hard disk or the floppy drive.
3. Multipartite Viruses
Multipartite viruses are the hybrid variety; they can be best described
as a cross between both Boot Viruses and File viruses. They not only
infect files but also infect the boot sector.
4. Stealth Viruses
They viruses are stealth in nature and use various methods to hide
themselves and to avoid detection.
5. Polymorphic Viruses
They are the most difficult viruses to detect. They have the ability to
mutate this means that they change the viral code known as the
signature each time it spreads or infects.
6. Macro viruses
In essence, a macro is an executable program embedded in a word
processing document or other type of file. Typically users employ
macros to automate repetitive tasks and there by save key strokes
THE FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF A VIRUS
Every viable computer virus must have at least two basic parts, or
subroutines, if it is even to be called a virus. Firstly, it must
contain a search routine, which locates new files or new areas on disk
which are worthwhile targets for infection. This routine will determine
how well the virus reproduces, e.g., whether it does so quickly or
slowly, whether it can infect multiple disks or a single disk, and
whether it can infect every portion of a disk or just certain specific
areas. As with all programs, there is a size versus functionality
tradeoff here. The more sophisticated the search routine is, the more
space it will take up .So although an efficient search routine may help
a virus to spread faster, it will make the virus bigger, and that is
not always so good.
Secondly, every computer virus must contain a routine to copy itself
into the area which the search routine locates. The copy routine will
only be sophisticated enough to do its job without getting caught. The
smaller it is, the better. How small it can be will depend on how
complex a virus it must copy. For example, a virus which infects only
COM files can get by with a much smaller copy routine than a virus
which infects EXE files. This is because the EXE file structure is much
more complex, so the virus simply needs to do more to attach itself to
an EXE file.
While the virus only needs to be able to locate suitable hosts and
attach itself to them, it is usually helpful to incorporate some
additional features into the virus to avoid detection, either by the
computer user, or by commercial virus detection software. Anti-
detection routines can either be a part of the search or copy routines,
or functionally separate from them. For example, the search routine may
be severely limited in scope to avoid detection. A routine which
checked every file on every disk drive, without limit, would take a
long time and cause enough unusual disk activity that an alert user
might become suspicious. Alternatively, an Anti-detection routine might
cause the virus to activate under certain special conditions. For
example, it might activate only after a certain date has passed (so the
virus could lie dormant for a time).
Figure 1. Functional diagram of a virus.
Alternatively, it might activate only if a key has not been pressed for
five minutes (suggesting that the user was not there watching his
computer). Search, copy, and anti-detection routines are the only
necessary components of a computer virus, and they are the components
which we will concentrate on in this volume. Of course, many computer
viruses have other routines added in on top of the basic three to stop
normal computer operation, to cause destruction, or to play practical
jokes. Such routines may give the virus character, but they are not
essential to its existence. In fact, such routines are usually very
detrimental to the virusâ„¢ goal of survival and self-reproduction,
because they make the fact of the virusâ„¢ existence known to everybody.
If there is just a little more disk activity than expected, no one will
probably notice, and the virus will go on its merry way. On the other
hand, if the screen to oneâ„¢s favorite program comes up saying Ha!
Gotcha! and then the whole
Computer locks up, with everything on it ruined, most anyone can figure
out that theyâ„¢ve been the victim of a destructive program. And if
theyâ„¢re smart, theyâ„¢ll get expert help to eradicate it right away. The
result is that the viruses on that particular system are killed off,
either by themselves or by the clean up crew.
2.4 TOOLS NEEDED FOR WRITING VIRUSES
Viruses are written in assembly language. High level languages like
Basic, C, and Pascal have been designed to generate stand-alone
programs, but the assumptions made by these languages render them
almost useless when writing viruses. They are simply incapable of
performing the acrobatics required for a virus to jump from one host
program to another. That is not to say that one could not design a high
level language that would do the job, but no one has done so yet. Thus,
to create viruses, we must use assembly language. It is just the only
way we can get exacting control over all the computer systemâ„¢s
resources and use them the way we want to, rather than the way somebody
else thinks we should.
3. VIRUSES IN DETAIL
3.1 FILE OR PROGRAM VIRUSES
Some programs are viruses in disguise, when executed they load the
virus in the memory along with the program and perform the predefined
steps and infect the system. They infect program files like files with
extensions like .EXE, .COM, .BIN, .DRV and .SYS. Some file viruses just
replicate while others destroy the program being used at that time.
Such viruses start replicated as soon as they are loaded into the
memory. As the file viruses also destroy the program currently being
used, after removing the virus or disinfecting the system, the program
that got corrupted due to the file virus, too, has to be repaired or
reinstalled.
3.1.1 A Simple COM File Infector
Some DOS Basics
EXE and COM files are directly executable by the Central Processing
Unit. To execute a COM file, DOS must do some preparatory work before
giving that program control. Most importantly, DOS controls and
allocates memory usage in the computer. So first it checks to see if
there is enough room in memory to load the program. If it can, DOS then
allocates the memory required for the program. DOS simply records how
much space it is making available for such and such a program, so it
wonâ„¢t try to load another program on top of it later.
Next, DOS builds a block of memory 256 bytes long known as the Program
Segment Prefix, or PSP.
Once the PSP is built, DOS takes the COM file stored on disk and loads
it into memory just above the PSP, starting at offset 100H. Once this
is done, DOS is almost ready to pass control to the program. Before it
does, though, it must set up the registers in the CPU to certain
predetermined values. First, the segment registers must be set
properly, or a COM program cannot run.
COM files are designed to operate with a very simple, but limited
segment structure. Namely they have one segment, cs=ds=es=ss. All data
is stored in the same segment as the program code itself, and the stack
shares this segment.
Figure 2. Memory map just before executing a COM file.
An Outline for a Virus
In order for a virus to reside in a COM file, it must get control
passed to its code at some point during the execution of the program.
The easiest point to take control is right at the very beginning, when
DOS jumps to the start of the program.
At this time, the virus is completely free to use any space above the
image of the COM file which was loaded into memory by DOS. Since the
program itself has not yet executed, it cannot have set up data
anywhere in memory, or moved the stack, so this is a very safe time for
the virus to operate. To gain control at startup time, a virus
infecting a COM file must replace the first few bytes in the COM file
with a jump to the virus code, which can be appended at the end of the
COM file.
Then, when the COM file is executed, it jumps to the virus, which goes
about looking for more files to infect, and infecting them. When the
virus is ready, it can return control to the host program. The problem
in doing this is that the virus already replaced the first few bytes of
the host program with its own code. Thus it must restore those bytes,
and then jump back to offset 100 Hex, where the original program
begins.
Step by step, it might work like this:
1. An infected COM file is loaded into memory and executed. The
viral code gets control first.
2. The virus in memory searches the disk to find a suitable COM
file to infect.
3. If a suitable file is found, the virus appends its own code to
the end of the file.
4. Next, it reads the first few bytes of the file into memory, and
writes them back out to the file in a special data area within the
virusâ„¢ code. The new virus will need these bytes when it executes.
5. Next the virus in memory writes a jump instruction to the
beginning of the file it is infecting, which will pass control to the
new virus when its host program is executed.
6. Then the virus in memory takes the bytes which were originally
the first bytes in its host, and puts them back (at offset 100H).
7. Finally, the viral code jumps to offset 100 Hex and allows its
host program to execute. Ok. So letâ„¢s develop a real virus with these
specifications. We will need both a search mechanism and a copy
mechanism.
Figure 3. Replacing the first bytes in a COM file.
3.1.2 AN EXECUTABLE VIRUS
The simple COM file infector which we just developed it only attacks
COM files in the current directory, it will have a hard time
proliferating. In this chapter, we will develop a more sophisticated
virus that will overcome these limitations. . . . a virus that can
infect EXE files and jump directory to directory and drive to drive.
Such improvements make the virus much more complex, and also much more
dangerous.
The structure of an exe file
The EXE file is designed to allow DOS to execute programs that require
more than 64 kilobytes of code, data and stack. All of this information
is stored in the EXE file itself, in the EXE Header at the beginning of
the file. This header has two parts to it, a fixed-length portion, and
a variable length table of pointers to segment references in the Load
Module, called the Relocation Pointer Table. Since any virus which
attacks EXE files must be able to manipulate the data in the EXE
Header.
Figure 4. The layout of an EXE file.
Infecting an EXE File
A virus that is going to infect an EXE file will have to modify the EXE
Header and the Relocation Pointer Table, as well as adding its own code
to the Load Module. The EXE file virus will attach itself to the end of
an EXE program and gain control when the program first starts. This
will require a routine similar to that in COM File, which copies
program code from memory to a file on disk, and then adjusts the file.
To set up segments for the virus, new initial segment values for cs and
ss must be placed in the EXE file header. All the initial segment
values must be calculated from the size of the load module which is
being infected. Also, the old initial segments must be stored
somewhere in the virus, so it can pass control back to the host program
when it is finished executing. We will have to put two pointers to
these segment references in the relocation pointer table, since they
are relocatable references inside the virus code segment.
A Persistent File Search Mechanism
As in the TIMID virus, the search mechanism and determine whether it
can be infected and make sure it has not already been infected. The
only two criteria for determining whether an EXE file can be infected
are whether the Overlay Number is zero, and whether it has enough room
in its relocation pointer table for two more pointers. To determine
whether the virus has already infected a file, we put an ID word with a
pre-assigned value in the code segment at a fixed offset (say 0).
The procedure in COM file virus could only search for files in the
current directory to attack. a good virus should be able to leap from
directory to directory, and even from drive to drive. To search more
than one directory, we need a tree search routine. For each
subdirectory found, search routine will recursively call itself using
the new subdirectory as the directory to perform a search on.
Passing Control to the Host
The final step the virus must take is to pass control to the host
program. To do that, all the registers should be set up the same as
they would be if the host program were being executed without the
virus. Except for these, only the ax register is set to a specific
value by DOS, to indicate the validity of the drive ID in the FCBâ„¢s in
the PSP. The DTA must also be moved when the virus is first fired up,
and then restored when control is passed to the host.
3.2 A BOOT SECTOR VIRUS
The boot sector virus can be the simplest or the most sophisticated of
all computer viruses. Since the boot sector is the first code to gain
control after the ROM startup code, it is very difficult to stop before
it loads. If one writes a boot sector virus with sufficiently
sophisticated anti-detection routines, it can also be very difficult to
detect after it loads, making the virus nearly invincible.
Specifically, letâ„¢s look at a virus which will carefully hide itself on
both floppy disks and hard disks, and will infect new disks very
efficiently, rather than just at boot time. Such a virus will require
more than one sector of code, so we will be faced with hiding multiple
sectors on disk and loading them at boot time.
Additionally, if the virus is to infect other disks after boot-up, it
must leave at least a portion of itself memory-resident. The mechanism
for making the virus memory resident cannot take advantage of the DOS
Keep function (Function 31H) like typical TSR programs.
Basic Structure of the Virus
Our new boot sector virus, named STEALTH, will have three parts. First,
there is a new boot sector, called the viral boot sector. This is the
sector of code that will replace the original boot sector at Track 0,
Head 0, Sector 1. Secondly, there is the main body of the virus, which
consists of several sectors of code that will be hidden on the disk.
Thirdly, there is the old boot sector, which will be incorporated into
the virus.
When the viral boot sector is loaded and executed at startup, it will
go out to disk and load the main body of the virus and the old boot
sector. The main body of the virus will execute, possibly infecting the
hard disk, and installing itself in memory (as we will discuss in a
moment) so it can infect other disks later. Then it will copy the
original boot sector over the viral boot sector at 0000:7C00H, and
execute it. The last step allows the disk to boot up in a normal
fashion without having to bother writing code for startup.
It simply gobbles up the code thatâ„¢s already there and turns it to its
own purposes. This strategy provides the added benefit that the boot
sector virus will be completely operating system independent.
The Copy Mechanism
The biggest part of designing the copy mechanism is deciding how to
hide the virus on disk. One tricky way of making the virus code totally
invisible to the user is to store the data on disk in an area that is
completely outside of anything that DOS (or other operating systems)
can understand. In the case of floppies, an alternative is to tell DOS
to reserve a certain area of the disk and stay away from it. Then the
virus can put itself in that area and be sure that DOS will not see it
or overwrite it. This can be accomplished by manipulating the File
Attribute Table. Letâ„¢s examine the 3 1/2" 720 kilobyte diskette format
in detail to see how STEALTH approaches hiding itself. This kind of
diskette has 80 tracks, two sides, and nine sectors per track. The
virus will hide the body of its code in Track 79, Side 1 and Sectors 4
through 9. Those are the last six sectors on the disk, and
consequently, the sectors least likely to contain data. STEALTH puts
the main body of its code in sectors 4 through 8, and hides the
original boot sector in sector 9. However, since DOS normally uses
those sectors, the virus will be overwritten unless it has a way of
telling DOS to stay out. Fortunately, that can be done by modifying the
FAT table to tell DOS that those sectors on the disk are bad.
If a cluster is empty, the corresponding FAT entry is 0. If it
is in the middle of a file, the FAT entry is a pointer to the next
cluster in the file; if it is at the end of a file, the FAT entry is
FF8 through FFF. A cluster may be marked as bad by placing an FF7 Hex
in its FAT entry. In the event that the diskette is full of data, the
virus should ideally be polite, and avoid overwriting anything stored
in the last clusters. This is easily accomplished by checking the FAT
first, to see if anything is there before infecting the disk.
There are non-DOS areas on every disk. In particular, the first
boot sector, which contains the partition table, is not a part of DOS.
Hence finding a single area on any hard disk that does not belong to
DOS is not too difficult. Although the first boot sector is located at
Track 0, Head 0, Sector 1, FDISK (for all the versions Iâ„¢ve tested)
does not place the start of the first partition at Track 0, Head 0 and
Sector 2. Instead, it always starts at Track 0, Head 1, and Sector 1.
That means that all of Track 0, Head 0 (except the first sector) is
free space.
Once a strategy for hiding the virus has been developed, the copy
mechanism follows quite naturally. To infect a disk, the virus must:
1) Determine which type of disk it is going to infect, a hard disk or
one of the four floppy disk types.
2) Determine whether that disk is already infected, or if there is no
room for the virus. If so, the copy mechanism should not attempt to
infect the disk.
3) Update the FAT tables (for floppies) to indicate that the sectors
where the virus is hidden are bad sectors.
4) Move all the virus code to the hidden area on disk.
5) Read the original boot sector from the disk and write it back out to
the hidden area in the sector just after the virus code.
6) Take the disk parameter data from the original boot sector (and the
partition information for hard disks) and copy it into the viral boot
sector. Write this new boot sector to disk as the boot sector at Track
0, Head 0 and Sector 1.
The Search Mechanism
Searching for uninfected disks is not very difficult. We could put an
ID byte in the viral boot sector so when the virus reads the boot
sector on a disk and finds the ID; it knows the disk is infected.
Otherwise it can infect the disk. Infecting floppy disks and hard disks
are entirely different matters. Then if a user leaves an infected
diskette in drive A and turns on his machine, his hard drive is
infected immediately.
On the other hand, once a hard disk has the virus on it, In
order to infect the floppy disk the virus must be present in memory
when the diskettes are in the floppy drive. That means when the virus
is loaded from a hard drive, it must become memory-resident and stay
there. If the virus were to trigger when the boot sector itself is
read, the disk would be infected immediately, since the boot sector on
a newly inserted floppy drive is read before anything else is done. It
will go into the infection sequence any time that the boot sector is
read. That means that when the virus is active, any time you so much as
insert a floppy disk into the drive, and do a directory listing (or any
other operation that reads the disk), it will immediately become
infected. To implement this search mechanism, the STEALTH virus must
intercept Interrupt 13H, the BIOS disk service, at boot time,
Installing the Virus in Memory
Before the virus passes control to the original boot sector, which will
load DOS, it must set itself up in memory somewhere where it wonâ„¢t get
touched. The basic idea involved here is that DOS uses a number stored
at 0040:0013 Hex, which contains the size of available memory in
kilobytes. This number is set up by the BIOS before it reads the boot
sector. It may have a value ranging up to 640 = 280H. When the BIOS set
this parameter up, it looks to see how much memory is actually
installed in the computer, and reports it here. However, something
could come along before DOS loads and change this number to a smaller
value. In such a situation, DOS will not use all the memory that is
available in the system, but only what itâ„¢s told to use by this memory
size variable. Memory above that point will be reserved, and DOS wonâ„¢t
touch it.
The two responsibilities of the viral boot sector are to load the main
body of the virus into memory, and then to load and execute the
original boot sector. When the BIOS loads the viral boot sector (and it
loads whatever is placed at Track 0, Head 0, Sector 1), that sector
first moves itself into the highest 512 bytes of memory (within the 640
kilobyte limit). In a machine with 640K of memory, the first unoccupied
byte of memory is at A000:0000. The boot sector will move itself to the
first 512 bytes just below this. Since that sector was compiled with an
offset of 7C00 Hex, it must relocate to 9820:7C00 Hex (which is right
below A000:0000), as desired. Next, the viral boot sector will read the
6 sector long main body of the virus into memory just below this, from
9820:7000 to 9820:7BFF. The original boot sector occupies 9820:7A00 to
9820:7BFF (since it is the sixth of six sectors loaded).
The viral boot sector then subtracts 4 from the byte at
0040:0013H to reserve 4 kilobytes of memory for the virus. Next, the
viral boot sector reroutes Interrupt 13H to the virus. Finally, it
moves the original boot sector from 9820:7A00 to 0000:7C00 and executes
it. The original boot sector proceeds to load DOS and get the computer
up and running, oblivious to the fact that the system is infected.
3.3 MULTIPARTITE VIRUSES
Multipartite viruses are the hybrid variety; they can be best
described as a cross between both Boot Viruses and File viruses. They
not only infect files but also infect the boot sector. They are more
destructive and more difficult to remove. First of all, they infect
program files and when the infected program is launched or run, the
multipartite viruses start infecting the boot sector too. Now the
interesting thing about these viruses is the fact that they do not
stop, once the boot sector is infected. Now after the boot sector is
infected, when the system is booted, they load into the memory and
start infecting other program files. Some popular examples would be
Invader and Flip etc.
3.4 STEALTH VIRUSES
They viruses are stealth in nature and use various methods to hide
themselves and to avoid detection. They sometimes remove themselves
from the memory temporarily to avoid detection and hiding from virus
scanners. Some can also redirect the disk head to read another sector
instead of the sector in which they reside. Some stealth viruses like
the Whale conceal the increase in the length of the infected file and
display the original length by reducing the size by the same amount as
that of the increase, so as to avoid detection from scanners. For
example, the whale virus adds 9216 bytes to an infected file and then
the virus subtracts the same number of bytes i.e. 9216 from the size
given in the directory. They are somewhat difficult to detect.
3.5 POLYMORPHIC VIRUSES
They are the most difficult viruses to detect. They have the ability to
mutate this means that they change the viral code known as the
signature each time it spreads or infects. Thus Antiviruses which look
for specific virus codes are not able to detect such viruses. Now what
exactly is a Viral Signature? Basically the Signature can be defined as
the specific fingerprint of a particular virus which is a string of
bytes taken from the code of the virus. Antiviral softwares maintain a
database of known virus signatures and look for a match each time they
scan for viruses. As we see a new virus almost everyday, this database
of Virus Signatures has to be kept updated. This is the reason why the
Antivirus vendors provide updates.
How does a Polymorphic Virus Strike?
1. The User copies an infected file to the disk.
2. When the infected file is run, it loads the Virus into the memory or
the RAM.
3. The new virus looks for a host and starts infecting other files on
the disk.
4. The virus makes copies of itself on the disk.
5. The mutation engines on the new viruses generate a new unique
encryptic code which is developed due to a new unique algorithm.
Thus it avoids detecting from Check summers.
3.6 MACRO VIRUSES
In essence, a macro is an executable program embedded in a word
processing document or other type of file. Typically users employ
macros to automate repetitive tasks and there by save key strokes. The
macro language is some type of basic programming language. A user might
define a sequence of key strokes in a macro and set it up so that a
macro is invoked when a function key is invoked. Common auto executing
events are opening a file, closing file etc. Once a macro is running
it can copy itself to other documents, deleting files etc.
How does a Macro Virus strike?
1. The user gets an infected Office Document by email or by any other
medium.
2. The infected document is opened by the user.
3. The evil Macro code looks for the event to occur which is set as the
event handler at which the Virus is set off or starts infecting other
files.
Macro viruses include Concept, Melissa, and Have a Nice Day.
4. ANTIVIRUS APPROACHES
The ideal solution to the threat of viruses is prevention. Do
not allow a virus is get into the system in first place. This goal is
in general difficult to achieve, although prevention can reduce the no:
of successful viral attacks. The next best approach is to be able to do
the following.
¢ Detection: Once the infection has occurred, determine that it
has occurred and locate the virus.
¢ Identification: Once detection has been achieved, identify the
specific virus has infected a program.
¢ Removal: Once the specific virus has been identified, remove
all traces of the virus from the infected program and restore it to its
original state.
Advances in viruses and antivirus technology go hand in hand.
As the virus arms race has evolved, both viruses and antivirus software
have grown more complex and sophisticated. There are three main kinds
of anti-virus programs [McAfee]. Essentially these are scanners,
monitors and integrity checkers.
4.1. SCANNERS
Scanners are programs that scan the executable objects (files and boot
sectors) for the presence of code sequences that are present in the
known viruses. Currently, these are the most popular and the most
widely used kind of anti-virus programs. There are some variations of
the scanning technique, like virus removal programs (programs that can
"repair" the infected objects by removing the virus from them),
resident scanners (programs that are constantly active in memory and
scan every file before it is executed), virus identifiers (programs
that can recognize the particular virus variant exactly by keeping some
kind of map of the non-modifiable parts of the virus body and their
checksums), heuristic analyzers (programs that scan for particular
sequences of instructions that perform some virus-like functions), and
so on.
The reason that this kind of anti-virus program is so widely used
nowadays is that they are relatively easy to maintain. This is
especially true for the programs which just report the infection by a
known virus variant, without attempting exact identification or
removal. They consist mainly of a searching engine and a database of
code sequences (often called virus signatures or scan strings) that are
present in the known viruses. When a new virus appears, the author of
the scanner needs just to pick a good signature (which is present in
each copy of the virus and in the same time is unlikely to be found in
any legitimate program) and to add it to the scanner's database. Often
this can be done very quickly and without a detailed disassembly and
understanding of the particular virus.
Furthermore, scanning of any new software is the only way to detect
viruses before they have the chance to get executed. Having in mind
that in most operating systems for personal computers the program being
executed has the full rights to access and/or modify any memory
location (including the operating system itself), it is preferable that
the infected programs do not get any chance to be executed.
At last, even if the computer is protected by another (not virus-
specific) defense, a scanner will still be needed. The reason is that
when the non virus-specific defense detects a virus-like behavior, the
user usually wants to identify the particular virus, which is attacking
the system - for instance, to figure out the possible side-effects or
intentional damage, or at least to identify all infected objects.
Unfortunately, the scanners have several very serious drawbacks. The
main one is that they must be constantly kept up-to-date. Since they
can detect only the known viruses, any new virus presents a danger,
because it can bypass a scanner-only based protection. In fact, an old
scanner is worse than no protection at all - since it provides a false
sense of security.
Simultaneously, it is very difficult to keep a scanner up-to-date. In
order to produce an update, which can detect a particular new virus,
the author of the scanner must obtain a sample of the virus,
disassemble it, understand it, pick a good scan string that is
characteristic for this virus and is unlikely to cause a false positive
alert, incorporate this string in the scanner, and ship the update to
the users. This can take quite a lot of time. And new viruses are
created every day - with a current rate of up to 100 per month. Very
few anti-virus producers are able to keep up-to-date with such a
production rate. One can even argue that the scanners are somehow
responsible for the existence of so many virus variants. Indeed, since
it is so easy to modify a virus in order to avoid a particular scanner,
lots of "wannabe" virus writers are doing it.
However, the fact that the scanners are obsolete as a single line of
defense against the computer viruses became obvious only with the
appearance of the polymorphic viruses. These are viruses, which use a
variable encryption scheme to encode their body and which even modify
the small decryption routine, so that the virus looks differently in
each infected file. It is impossible to pick a simple sequence of bytes
that will be present in all infected files and use it as a scan string.
Such sequence simply does not exist. Some polymorphic viruses can be
detected using a wildcard scan string, but more and more viruses appear
today, which cannot be detected even if the scan string is allowed to
contain wildcard bytes.
The only possible way to detect such viruses is to understand their
mutation engine in detail. Then one has to construct an algorithmic
"scanning engine" specific to the particular virus. However, this is a
very time-consuming and effort-expensive task, so many of the existing
scanners have problems with the polymorphic viruses. And we are going
to see more such viruses in the future. The Bulgarian virus writer
known under the handle Dark Avenger has even released a "mutating
engine" - a tool for building extremely polymorphic viruses... Very few
scanners are able to detect the viruses, which are using it, with 100
reliability.
One last drawback of the scanners is that scanning for lots of viruses
can be very time-consuming. The number of currently existing viruses is
about 1,600 and is expected to reach 3,000 at the end of 1992. Indeed,
some scanners use clever scanning methods like fixed-point scanning,
top-and-tail scanning, hashing and so on. The detailed description of
these methods is outside the scope of this paper, but as has been
proved in [Cohen90], scanning is not cost-effective in the long run,
despite the scanning method used.
4.2 MONITORS
The monitoring programs are memory resident programs, which constantly
monitor some functions of the operating system. Those are the functions
that are considered to be dangerous and indicative for virus-like
behavior. Such functions include modifying an executable file, direct
access of the disk bypassing the operating system, and so on. When a
program tries to use such a function, the monitoring program intercepts
it and either denies it completely or asks the user for confirmation.
Unlike the scanners, the monitors are not virus-specific and therefore
need not to be constantly updated. Unfortunately, they have other very
serious drawbacks - drawbacks that make them even weaker than the
scanners as an anti-virus defense and almost unusable today.
The most serious drawback of the monitors is that they can be easily
bypassed by the so-called tunneling viruses. The reason for this is the
total lack of memory protection in most operating systems for personal
computers. Any program that is being executed (including the virus) has
full access to read and/or modify any area of the computer's memory -
including the parts of the operating system. Therefore, any monitoring
program can be disabled because the virus could simply patch it in the
memory. There are other clever techniques as interrupt tracing, DOS
scanning, and so on, which allow the viruses to find the original
handlers of any operating system function. Afterwards, this function
can be called directly, thus bypassing any monitoring programs, which
watch for it.
Another drawback of the monitoring programs is that they try to detect
a virus by its behavior. This is essentially impossible in the general
case, as proven in [Cohen84]. Therefore, they cause many false alarms -
since the functions that are expected to be used by the computer
viruses usually have pretty legitimate use by the normal programs. And
if the user gets used to the false alerts, s/he will be likely to
oversee a real one.
The monitoring programs are also completely useless against the slow
viruses, described later in this paper.
4.3 INTEGRITY CHECKING PROGRAMS.
Therefore, in order to be a virus, a program must be able to infect.
And, in order to infect, the program must cause modifications to the
programs that are infected. Therefore, a program, which can detect that
the other executable objects have been modified, will be able to detect
the infection. Such programs are usually called integrity checkers.
The integrity checkers compute some kind of checksum of the executable
code in a computer system and store it in a database. The checksums are
re-computed periodically and compared with the stored originals.
Several authors point out that in order to avoid forging attempts from
the part of the virus, the checksums must be cryptographically strong.
This can be achieved by using some kind of trap-door one-way function,
which is algorithmically difficult to be inverted. Such functions
include DES, MD4, MD5, and so on. But, as has been shown by [Radai],
this is not mandatory. A simple CRC is sufficient, if implemented
correctly.
There are several kinds of integrity checkers. The most widely used
ones are the off-line integrity checkers, which are run to check the
integrity of all the executable code on a computer system. Another kind
is the integrity modules, which can be attached (with the help of a
special program) to the executable files, so that when the latter
started will check their own integrity. Unfortunately, this is not a
good idea, since not all executable objects can be "immunized" this
way. Additionally, the "immunization" itself can be easily bypassed by
stealth viruses, as described later in this paper. The third kind of
integrity software is the integrity shells. They are resident programs,
similar to the resident scanners, which check the integrity of an
object only at the moment when this object is about to be executed.
These are the least widespread anti-virus programs today, but the
specialists predict them a bright future [Cohen90].
The integrity checking programs are not virus-specific and therefore do
not need constant updating like the scanners. They do not try to block
virus replication attempts like the monitoring programs and therefore
cannot be bypassed by the tunneling viruses. In fact, as demonstrated
by [Cohen90], they are currently the most cost-effective and sound line
of defense against the computer viruses.
They also have some drawbacks. For instance, they cannot prevent an
infection - they are able only to detect and report it after the fact.
Second, they must be installed on a virus-free system; otherwise they
will compute and store the checksums of already infected objects.
Therefore, they must be used in a combination with a scanner at least
before installation. This is needed, in order to ensure that the system
they are being installed on is virus-free. Third, they are prone to
false positive alerts. Since they detect changes, not viruses, any
change in the programs (like updating the software with a new version),
is likely to trigger the alert. Sometimes this can be avoided or at
least reduced by using some intelligent heuristics and educating the
users. Fourth, while the integrity checkers are able to detect the
virus spread and identify the newly infected objects, they usually
cannot determine the initially infected object, i.e., the source of the
infection.
Despite the drawbacks mentioned, the integrity checking programs are
the currently most powerful line of defense against computer viruses
and are likely to be used more widely in the future. Therefore, we
should expect that new viruses will appear which will target the
integrity programs in the same way as the polymorphic viruses are
targeting the scanners and the tunneling viruses are targeting the
monitors. Let's see what kinds of attacks are possible against the
integrity checking programs and how these programs can be improved to
avoid them.
5. CONCLUSION
Computer viruses are not evil and that programmers have a right to
create them, posses them and experiment with them. But we should never
support those people who writing viruses with destructive nature. If
you do create a virus, though, be careful with it. Make sure you know
it is working properly or you may wipe out your own system by accident.
And make sure you donâ„¢t inadvertently release it into the world.
In order to deal with the viruses it is necessary to have a deep
knowledge of the way in which different viruses exploits our systemâ„¢s
weakness, there by causing destruction of data or hampering of
security. Furthermore, it is also impossible to create antivirus
against a particular virus with out knowing the way it affects our
system.
7. REFERENCES
1. The Little Black book of Computer Viruses (electronic edition)
By Mark A. Ludwig
2. An Undetectable Computer Virus by David Chess and Steve White,
presented at the Virus Bulletin Conference, September 2000 [PDF
version]
3. Fred Cohen, Computer Viruses - Theory and Experiments, Computer
Security: A Global Challenge, Elsevier Science Publishers B. V. (North
-Holland), 1984, pp. 143-158.
4. Fred Cohen, Models of Practical Defenses against Computer
Viruses, Computers Security, 8 (1989), 2, pp. 149-160.
5. Nachenberg, C. Computer Virus-Antivirus Coevolution.
Communications of the ACM.
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. VIRUSES
BASICS OF COMPUTER VIRUSES
TYPES OF VIRUSES
FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF A VIRUS
TOOLS NEEDED FOR WRITING VIRUSES
3. VIRUSES IN DETAIL
FILE OR PROGRAM VIRUSES
A Simple Com Infector
An Executable Virus
A BOOT SECTOR VIRUS
MULTIPARTITE VIRUSES
STEALTH VIRUSES
POLYMORHIC VIRUSES
MACRO VIRUSES
4. ANTIVIRUS APPROACHES
SCANNERS
MONITORS
INTEGRITY CHECKING PROGRAMS
5. CONCLUSION
6. REFERENCES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I express my sincere thanks to Prof. M.N Agnisarman Namboothiri
(Head of the Department, Computer Science and Engineering, MESCE),
Mr. Zainul Abid (Staff incharge) for their kind co-operation for
presenting the seminars.
I also extend my sincere thanks to all other members of the faculty of
Computer Science and Engineering Department and my friends for their
co-operation and encouragement.
Sajeesh. K.S.
