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MyDoom.O Harvesting Email Addresses from Search Engines and Causing Denial of Service Attacks
MessageLabs, the leading provider of managed email security services to businesses worldwide, is advising computer users that W32.Mydoom.O contains multiple search engine URLs and is using them to harvest additional domain email addresses.
MyDoom.O searches user files (DOC TXT HTM and HTML) for domain names, then uses search engines (Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo and Google) to search for "e-mail" and the harvested domain in order to gain access to other email addresses.
There is a strong likelihood that web-based lists such as phone books, memberships, discussion boards and general user home pages will be harvested by the machine and in turn infect others.
A search on Google using the same "e-mail" + domain method has generated a "Forbidden" message, which may indicate activity on the part of the search engines to thwart the virus.
"Because MyDoom.O contains web site links and auto executes searches to specific and targeted sites, this virus is resulting in distributed Denial of Service attacks against Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo and Google," said Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer of MessageLabs. "Whether that was the intention or not, that appears to be the result."
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The URLs contained in MyDoom.O are:
http://search.lycos.com/default.asp?lpv=1&loc=searchhp&tab= web&query=%s
http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=%s&kgs=0&kls=0
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%s&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&cop= mss&tab=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s
According to other intelligence now circulating, MyDoom.O can also harvest emails from any Outlook Windows active on the compromised machine. This will lead to additional propagation via SMTP even after a peak infection period.
General Details
Name: W32/MyDoom.O-mm
Number of copies intercepted so far: 23,000 within first five hours
Time & date first captured: July 26, 2004; 4:40 AM EST
Origin of first intercepted copy: UK
MyDoom.O is a mass-mailing worm with an SMTP engine that sends emails to addresses harvested from infected machines. The sender's From: email address is forged, and therefore does not indicate the true identity of the sender. MyDoom.O may also spoof from the mailer-daemon@ address, which is typically used to indicate a delivery failure, thus enhancing its social engineering trickery.
The executable file is approximately 27,648 bytes in size. The virus is also packed with UPX v1.0x and stored in a ZIP attachment.
NB: The virus is also being referred to as: MyDoom.M, I-Worm.Mydoom.M, I-Worm.Mydoom. R, and W32/Mydoom.L.
File Types
-- PIF
-- SCR
-- DOC
-- EXE
-- HTM
Email Characteristics
From: Spoofed email address (including mailer-daemon@, noreply@)
Subject: Random (see below)
Text: Various
Size: 27,648 bytes
Subject
-- hi
-- delivery failed
-- Message could not be delivered
-- Mail System Error - Returned Mail
-- Delivery reports about your e-mail
-- Returned mail: see transcript for details
-- Returned mail: Data format error instruction
-- MAILER-DAEMON
-- "Mail Administrator"
-- "Automatic Email Delivery Software"
-- "Post Office"
-- "The Post Office"
-- "Bounced mail"
-- "Returned mail"
-- "Mail Delivery Subsystem"
Detection
MessageLabs detected all strains of this virus proactively, using its unique
and patented Skeptic(tm) predictive heuristics technology.
Source : http://home.businesswire.com/
