Apache worm in the wild.

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June 28th, 2002, 06:06 PM
micael

Apache worm in the wild.

I did just recieve this message in my inbox and I could not help my self for breaking my vacation and make a post :).

Quote:

Source: Bugtraq

Hi,

our honeypot systems trapped new apache worm(+trojan) in the wild. It
traverses through the net, and installs itself on all vulnerable apaches
it finds. No source code available yet, but I put the binaries into public
place, and more investigation is to be done.

http://dammit.lt/apache-worm/

Regards,
Domas Mituzas

Central systems @ MicroLink Data
June 28th, 2002, 06:40 PM
jethro

If the IP can be traced, then the source/origin of the attacks could be stopped, probably.
Also ``2001`` sounds like it might be a trojan made in the year 2001, but if it was we probably would have heard of it by know.
If a firewall can pick it up, just tracerting the IP address that the packets are going to might tell you who was trying to attack your computer....
June 30th, 2002, 08:22 AM
smirc

New Apache worm starts to spread

source: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-940585.html

By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 28, 2002, 5:00 PM PT

Security experts are rushing to decode a worm program that exploits a 2-week-old flaw to infect computers running vulnerable versions of the popular open-source Apache Web server application.
The worm is thought to be capable of spreading only to Web servers running the FreeBSD operating system, an open-source variant of Unix, that haven't had a patch applied for the recent flaw. Although few people have reported the worm, it is thought to be infecting vulnerable Web servers worldwide.

"It is spreading," said Domas Mituzas, a systems developer for Baltic information-technology firm Microlink Systems and the first to report the new worm. "It hit us from Poland, and the comments are in Italian, so it could be from any part of the world."

From his early analysis of the worm, the 19-year-old Lithuanian programmer believes it was designed to create a flood net--a collection of compromised servers that can be used in a denial-of-service attack to overwhelm a target with data.

While the initial advisory on the flaw, which was found by network security firm Internet Security Systems, said the Apache hole was exploitable only on the Windows version of Apache, a hacking team called Gobbles later claimed that the flaw could be exploited on all versions of the program. The team released exploits for Apache running on various versions of BSD to prove its point.

That probably helped the creator of the worm do the work, Mituzas said. "Otherwise, it would be really astonishing that someone had been able to write an exploit so fast," he said.

Marc Maiffret, chief hacking officer for network protection firm eEye Digital Security and one of the key analysts of the Code Red worm, agreed that the Apache worm was creating a stable of servers, sometimes called zombies, for later use in an attack.

"It's definitely setting up its own flood net," Maiffret said, but he added that "something even more destructive" could have been included in the worm.

There are 10.4 million active Web sites running on the Apache server, according to British consulting firm Netcraft. While the fraction of those servers running on FreeBSD is a minor share of the BSD, Linux and Unix market, both Mituzas and Maiffret warned that whoever created the worm could modify it to attack Apache running on any version of BSD and potentially Linux, Solaris and Unix.

At present, if the Apache worm tries to spread to any non-FreeBSD system, it will likely crash the session on the server to which the worm had connected. That's not so bad, said Maiffret, but it could cause many servers to crash if the worm develops into an epidemic.

"If the worm keeps hitting you, then it will keep dropping sessions, and it will be similar to a denial-of-service attack," Maiffret said.

The worm does not yet have a name.
June 30th, 2002, 08:56 AM
s0nIc

-=Update=-

Code:

Title ===== Apache worm on the loose that exploits the chunked encoding vulnerability Naming: ======= Virus name: Linux/Ehcapa Alias: Linux/Ehcapa.worm, FreeBSD.Scalper.Worm, ELF_SCALPER.A, Summary: ======== Discovered: 2002-06-28 9:45 PM, GMT Trigger: Upon execution Affected systems: ---------------------------------------------- Servers,UNIX,Linux Internet/ IntranetServers,UNIX,Apache ---------------------------------------------- Payload ---------------------------------------------- Performs TCP, UDP, DNS, and E-mail flooding Sends the IP address to certain email address Can allow malicious code to run on the webserver Allows unauthorized access to the infected machine ---------------------------------------------- Detail: ======== Scalper affects systems running FreeBSD running the vulnerable version of Apache web server. If the worm gains access to the server, it creates a temporary file "/tmp/.uua", which is an uuencoded worm. This file is decoded to "/tmp/.a" and executed. The uuencoded file is removed. At this point the worm sets up a backdoor to UDP port 2001 and starts scanning predefined set of Class-A networks. If the worm finds a web server, it checks if the server is running Apache, and if so, it will attempt to infect it. While the exploit code that Scalper uses will only infect systems running FreeBSD, these attempts will be visible in Apache servers running on other platforms as well. The backdoor component of the worm allows a remote control of the worm, sending of email, uploading of files and executing of arbitary programs. The execution of programs happens with the same user privilege as the Apache server. The backdoor can also perform different kind of denial of service attacks against arbitary hosts. The worm does not modify the system configuration, and it is visible in the system process list as a process ".a". Scalper can be removed from the system by deleting file "/tmp/.a" and terminating the worm process with command "killall -9 .a". The vulnerability used by the worm is fixed in Apache server versions 1.3.26 and 2.0.39. Further information is available from: Apache Software Foundation: http://httpd.apache.org/info/securit...n_20020620.txt CERT: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-17.html UNIRAS briefing number 190/02 Information taken from discussion groups on the Internet suggests: The exploit is based on Gobbles, his signature is in the shell code (the string is split into parts). And it's limited to IA32 (Intel 32 bit architecture). The worm has some ddos tools included UDP port 2001 as used for encrypted communication - for both tcp/udp flooding as well as e-mail flooding. The worm source code has been published on the Internet, so expect variants!! For systems using Anti Virus, patches are available. However the best course of action is to upgrade immediately and not rely on AV. UNIRAS has learnt over the years that most LINUX and UNIX systems do not use Antivirus products.