Flawed MyLife worm attempts to delete critical Windows files

08 Mar 2002 17:48

An attachment posing as a photograph is doing the rounds on the Internet, but a flaw in the code thwarts its attempts to delete files

A worm posing as an old-fashioned photograph of a girl holding a flower is making the rounds on the Internet. MyLife (w32.mylife@mm) is a 30,720-byte worm written in Visual Basic and compressed using UPX. If executed, the worm will attempt to mail copies of itself to everyone in the user's address book and will attempt to delete critical Windows files. Fortunately, a bug in the current worm code prevents MyLife from deleting any files. Users of Macintosh and Linux machines are not affected. Because MyLife spreads via email and currently does not damage system files, this worm rates a 4/10 on the ZDNet Virus Metre.

How it works
MyLife arrives as email with a subject line that reads "my life ohhhhhhhhhhhhh." The body of the email message contains the following text:

:Hiiiii
How are youuuuuuuu?
look to the digital picture it's my love
vvvery verrrry ffffunny :-)
my life = my car
my car = my house
The attached file is My Life.scr.

If the user opens the attached file, the worm will display a picture of a young girl sniffing a flower. The active worm will appear as the item My Life in the Windows Task Bar. MyLife copies itself to the Windows System directory and adds itself to the following Registry key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\strmgr = C:\windows\system\My Life.scr.

The worm will attempt to delete SYS and COM files from the root directory; COM, SYS, INI, and EXE files from Windows directory; and SYS, VXD, EXE, and DLL files from the Windows System directory. Several antivirus vendors have reported that this worm did not delete any files on their test systems.

Prevention
Users of Microsoft Outlook 2002 and users of Outlook 2000 who have installed the Security Update should be safe from the attached SCR file in MyLife. Users who have not upgraded to Outlook 2002 or who have not installed the Security Update for Outlook 2000 should do so. In general, do not open attached files in e-mail without first saving them to hard disk and scanning them with updated antivirus software. Contact your antivirus vendor to obtain the most current antivirus signature files that include MyLife.

Removal
A few antivirus software companies have updated their signature files to include this worm. This will stop the infection upon contact and in some cases will remove an active infection from your system. For more information, see Central Command, F-Secure, McAfee, Sophos, Symantec and Trend Micro.

For all security-related news, including updates on the latest viruses, hacking exploits and patches, check out ZDNet UK's Viruses and Hacking News Section.

Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the Security forum.

Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.