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Windows Operating Systems Software IT

Microsoft Warns of Impossible to Clean Spyware 813

Posted by Zonk from the they-have-the-technology dept.
darkjedi521 writes "The Inquirer has a story that the next generation of Windows spyware and exploits are starting to make use of "kernel rootkits". A paper at Microsoft Research has details on a prototype detection tool. Computerworld has more details, as well." From the article: "Newer rootkits can intercept system calls that are passed to the kernel and filter out queries generated by the software. This makes them invisible to administrators and to detection tools..."
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Microsoft Warns of Impossible to Clean Spyware More

Microsoft Warns of Impossible to Clean Spyware

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  • Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:58PM (#11715840) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft researchers have developed a tool, named "Strider Ghostbuster" that can detect rootkits by comparing clean and suspect versions of Windows and looking for differences.

    Sounds almost malaprop. "It works, I threatened to rip a copy of Ghostbusters II onto my HD and I heard a tiny scream! My spyware aragorn!"

    However the paper admits that the only way to be sure that you have killed a kernel rootkit is to completely erase an infected hard drive and reinstall the operating system from scratch.

    That sounds rather drastic. How about drilling a hole through it, smashing it with a sledgehammer and throwing it into the Tiber while you're at it? Microsoft seems to be making a stronger case all the time for not exposing a Windows PC to the internet. Maybe it is time to look at a Mac.

    Microsoft's XBox Firewire [technewsworld.com]

    • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:03PM (#11715911)
      I agree it's extreme. They should offer a downloadable bootable CD that verifies the checksums of all system files.

      • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:07PM (#11715971) Homepage Journal
        I agree it's extreme. They should offer a downloadable bootable CD that verifies the checksums of all system files.

        Not likely, as you and I may have XP Developer Edition, but where are you in your patches? Hmm?

        Seems the best way to handle this is to run all browser processes at a very low security level.

        • Sheesh! (Score:3, Funny)

          by Thud457 ( 234763 )
          Why do these people compile and install trojan software? Don't they do a code review before installation?

        • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:42PM (#11716439) Journal
          Not likely, as you and I may have XP Developer Edition, but where are you in your patches? Hmm?

          And what's hard about that? It's exceedingly unlikely that any particular version of any Windows system file will have the same MD5 checksum as a trojaned version. Plus, if you know that patch X contains this list of files with this list of checksums, you can determine what patchlevel it has. It's not easy to do as it takes some intelligent coding, but it's far from impossible. Or just go the lazy way -- based on the different versions of each file Microsoft has released, you will know that the file is either good (because of all the patched versions Microsoft has released, its MD5 checksum matches one) or the file is bad (because its checksum doesn't match one released by Microsoft).

      • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Informative)

        by pbranes ( 565105 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:29PM (#11716280)
        One of my job functions at the university where I'm employed is to fix student computers. 95% of the calls we receive are spyware/virus related. We have stopped trying to disinfect Windows from inside the operating system because it is pointless - there is no way to clean everything off from within the operating system. What we do is boot off of BartPE [nu2.nu] bootable CD, connect to the network, update the virus scanner & adaware, and clean off the hard drive. Then we proceed to boot the computer into windows to finish the final clean-up.

        So, it surprises me that a report about this kind of ad-ware/viruses is just now coming out because we have been dealing with impossible-to-remove software for at least a year now. Fortunately the only way to defeat a BartPE scan is to install a BIOS virus - and almost nobody does that any more. :-)

      • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:34PM (#11716345) Homepage Journal

        The only problem being that Joe User won't think of downloading until the first sign of trouble. Which could mean that he's running \/\/1nd0z3 already, which means any downloaded CD image from that point in time forward can be made to appear bona fide.

        A bootable CD with a checksum or digital signature checker ought to come with the system.

      • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:36PM (#11716353) Homepage
        They should offer a downloadable bootable CD that verifies the checksums of all system files.

        At first glance, it even seems like it would be fairly trivial to build one yourself assuming that you can maintain a clean set of files to generate checksums from. Once you have the files you can use the live distro and checksumming tool of your choice to do the comparisons and replace suspect files accordingly. However...

        The obviously problem is going to be dealing with DLL hell, especially if you want to include third party DLLs in your scanning tool. There are dozens of legitimate versions of some DLLs out there, especially for widely deployed things like the expoitable GDI DLLs that were at the centre of a "critical" patch a few months ago. Best of all, some apps are coded to require specific versions of those files and refuse to work with other versions. Yes, that's appallingly broken and terrible design, but it does happen, and checking the embedded DLL version number is no help - what's to stop a rootkit replacing a DLL's with a version with an unused version number? How would you deal with an unknown version of a critical DLL in a known shared file directory for a third party vendor that wouldn't confuse a typical user? Ignore it, and risk missing a rootkit? Delete it, and risk breaking an application (providing an option to restore it being an obvious safety net)? Or give the user a choice they probably won't understand between the two previous options?

    • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by temojen ( 678985 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:05PM (#11715944) Journal
      Except that's the recommended course of action for a rooted UNIX/Linux/BSD machine too (along with figuring out how it was rooted, plugging the hole, and preserving any evidence).

      • It's recommended, but not 100% necessary. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:13PM (#11716059)
        With Linux, you can boot from a live CD and validate every file and package on your system.

        You can even chroot the system, wipe the boot sector and re-install the kernel.

        This might be "impossible" to clean on Windows, but on Linux, it's just really annoying.
      • I prefer to have read-only filesystems. That way, every reboot guarantees a clean system.

        • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:49PM (#11716505)
          I prefer to have read-only filesystems. That way, every reboot guarantees a clean system.

          You think it's a joke, but actually I do almost exactly that: for the few times I actually do need to use Windows, chiefly to use AutoCAD, I boot Win98 in VMWare and set it to always return to the hard-disk snapshot it booted with. That way, I can get as many xyz-wares on the Windows box, it'll always come back pristine the next time I restart it. And whenever I need to install something new, or change something in the Windows install, I do it carefully and take a new snapshot when I'm happy with it.

          Honestly, VMWare is the best way to use Windows :-)

          • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Werrismys ( 764601 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @09:27PM (#11719168)
            "Honestly, VMWare is the best way to use Windows :-)" You could not be more right. I have been advocating VMware before, but for a reason.

            I have set up 98SE, 2000Pro, XP environments (clean) under VMware and can easily create a 'clean' environment to test stuff. The snapshot feature is excellent, just snapshot the VM in question and if/when the software fucks up, restore.

            The virtual hardware is the same every time. No driver issues. In fact, the current desktop PC's are so fast that it would make sense to run Winblows in them exclusively under VMware.. just store the user dirs on server. Get a new PC? Just copy the virtual disks and configuration.

            I've been using VMware since its introduction and am currently using the 4 (and 5beta) versions for desktop use. I've had no use for the expensive server version yet since most of the servers are already running Linux.. but for those legacy Win32 apps VMware is really a blessing. Even been testing BSD's and SuSE distros with it.

    • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:06PM (#11715948) Journal
      Maybe it is time to look at a Mac.

      Kernel-level rootkits have plagued Unixes (including Linux) for a long time. Fortunately on Linux most suck, and can be detected with chkrootkit (yet how many out there that aren't detectable...), and (this is true for windows as well) any of them can be found simply by inspecting the drive from a known clean boot media.

      Removing rootkits (kernel level or not) from any OS requires either guruhood, an exact knowledge of which rootkit(s) was used and what files they trojan (as well as a clean source to restore those files from), or a reformat-reinstall-restore(dataonly)frombackups.
      • If we were all excellent system admins, we would have an md5 sum of each kernel and each pertinent file in /etc and each binary in the /sbin and /bin directories. I don't but it would probably be a good idea.

        • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:27PM (#11716249) Homepage
          Of course, there are standardized tools to generate md5 sums of files. A good rootkit, before replacing a file, determines the md5 checksum of the file. Then, when then easily-detectable standardized tools ask for the checksum, the rootkit intercepts the request and feeds the tool garbage. Of course, there are countermeasures you can take, but they will tend become standardized, leading to counter-counter-measures.

          What it boils down to is GIGO. If you don't trust to code running on your system, you can't trust ANY result reported by the system. The only solution is to force the system to run code you trust - ie boot to a floppy or CD.
        • A number of packaging utilities (mainly those not used on consumer-targetted OSes like Mac OS X and Windows) track checksums, sizes and permissions of installed files. At least, those that the packager indicates are expected to be non-mutable after install--so, typically, the contents of /usr, but not /etc or /var.

          The downside is, the repository of known sizes and checksums are stored on local disk. The upside is they are also recorded, in a fairly easy to retrieve form, on the original install media an

      • Yes UNIX system have had rootkit problems for a long time.

        However, how did those rootkits get installed? Typically through holes in services, like FTP server exploits or web server exploits or whatever.

        But OSX has none of those running by default. That's right, none. So while in theory possibly you could develop an exploit against, say, Apache on the Mac (the port you'd most likely be able to get to) it wouldn't reach many people at all, and so the user base would have to be quite huge to make it worth

        • Yes, it is the same problem (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tetromino ( 807969 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:52PM (#11716557)
          R00tkits will get installed on Macs the same way they get installed on Linux: through a combination of two exploits. First, the hacker uses an exploit to obtain shell access with an unprivileged account Typical exploits include holes in Samba or CUPS (which OSX also uses), browser bugs (e.g. libpng overflows), holes in various daemons (if you use your OSX as a server), or even simply using a keylogger on a public machine to catch a user's password.

          Then, the hacker uses a second exploit to elevate his local shell access to local root. Typical exploits of this nature include thread race conditions in the kernel, the kernel failing to properly sanitize input, or problems when a process is shifted from one kernel security infrastructure to another. The Linux kernel had a number of local root exploits in the past few months. IIRC Apple usually doesn't publish its list of security vulnerabilities (it just puts the fixes on Sofware Update, without fully explaining what they fix), so I can't comment on the security of the darwin xnu kernel.

          Thus, I would say it's about as easy to install a rootkit on a Linux workstation as on an OSX desktop (and similarly, it's as easy to install a rootkit on a Linux server as on an OSX server). In other words, you need an unpatched system vulnerable to a specific pair of exploits, a clueless admin, and a skilled hacker -- which is not an impossible combination.

      • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Informative)

        by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:58PM (#11716617)
        Argh! This is one of the most blatantly obvious mistakes that always get modded up on Slashdot.

        Yes, absolutely every general purpose OS can be rooted, spywared, hacked, or otherwise compromised.

        By analogy, anything can kill you, poison can kill you, water can kill you, a bullet can kill you and a butterfly can kill you. Being possible is not the same as being probable.

        In the binary, off/on, sense, security can theoretically be compromised. But we don't live in theory, we live in practice. There are no known kernel exploits for Mac OS X, there is no known spyware, there are no known viruses, there have been a handful of OS X specific exploits that require the user to run a program (and generally ask you to supply an admin password), and have all been "proof of concepts". The bulk of OS X security updates have been for Open Source/Unix apps, which are all turned off by default, and have never been reported as actually exploited.

        It's virtually impossible to just randomly get rooted, trojaned, hit by a virus, or otherwise find your Mac is pwn3d. On Windows, you need to be fairly diligent, and even then you can't be sure.

        You gotta ask yourself why this is. The answer isn't just "Windows is more common" (although that is a part of it. Windows is inherently flawed from a security standpoint. Mac OS X is inherently secure (relatively speaking). That doesn't mean it's impossible to hack a Mac, but it does mean that the risks are fewer, and are far more easily mitigated.

        When someone says, "Windows is malware-ridden, I'm switching to a Mac" (sometimes a toothless threat, sometimes not), the response, "but it's possible to write a rootkit for Mac OS X too," is not a counter-argument. It's, at best, a warning that someday that Mac might possibly, but not very likely, get a virus or something... maybe, probably not though.

        • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @06:53PM (#11717856)
          There are no known kernel exploits for Mac OS X, there is no known spyware, there are no known viruses, there have been a handful of OS X specific exploits that require the user to run a program (and generally ask you to supply an admin password), and have all been "proof of concepts". The bulk of OS X security updates have been for Open Source/Unix apps, which are all turned off by default, and have never been reported as actually exploited.

          That's because the open source apps have all their exploits reported as separate incidents, with incident IDs and so on. Apple (and Microsoft) slipstream security fixes into other patches all the time and just don't report them.

          For Microsoft this technique is no longer useful because hackers reverse engineer the patches to determine the security flaws.

    • Rootkit cleaning (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Craig Ringer ( 302899 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:08PM (#11715977) Homepage Journal
      As far as I know, rootkits like that have been the norm rather than the exception on Linux and, I think, the BSDs for some time. I don't know about the other UNIXes and UNIX-like OSes (like MacOS/X), but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case to some extent there too.

      It's been widely recognised for a while that if your system is cracked, the only way to be fairly sure you've cleaned it is to reformat it and start again then *carefully* restore data from backups. I don't see how this is news.

    • Re:Unpossible to Clean SpyWare? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CaptKilljoy ( 687808 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:10PM (#11716007)
      That sounds rather drastic.

      Um, dude, a rootkit for *any* OS that hides itself by intercepting kernel calls is effectively uneradicable except by total reinstall. How the hell would a Mac save you from that?
    • Long past time actually. Come on over to the Mac side. Everybody seriously, there's plenty of room over here.
      • I get this mental image of a lone mac user sitting in a huge empty stadium, shouting "Echo!!!"... "Hey, is anybody else here?"... "I promise, we're all having a great time, come on over!"

      • OSX definitely has some positives. (Score:4, Informative)

        by nortcele ( 186941 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:41PM (#11716422) Homepage
        OSX is more secure in many ways. For those that know what they are doing... (they usually don't get infected but that's beside the point) you can use the "chflags schg " command as root to lock a file so that it cannot be modified. The flag can only be cleared in single-user mode. Standard linux distros with ext2/ext3/reiserfs don't have that. I'm not real up to speed on WinXP or 2003, so I don't know if they have a single user mode (or a real multi-user mode ). But OSX can be hardened to where you can be sure the kernel or critical libs cannot be updated.

  • Impossible commands... (Score:3, Funny)

    by inertia187 ( 156602 ) * on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:58PM (#11715844) Homepage Journal
    Wow, Microsoft must think this command is impossible:
    A:\> format C: /AUTOTEST

  • This isn't really a problem (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChuckleBug ( 5201 ) * on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:58PM (#11715856) Journal
    There's a very simple SOP for Windows users that will completely eliminate the need for a fix:

    1. Buy new PC
    2. DO NOT PLUG IN NETWORK CABLE
    3. Image drive to external storage wth Ghost or the like
    4. Unplug external storage
    5. Plug in network cable
    6. Connect to Internet. Save any info needed for storage.
    7. Unplug network cable
    8. Print all info obtained in step 6
    9. Plug external storage back in
    10. Restore image made in step 3
    11. File hardcopies in cabinet
    12. Knock back 3 or more shots of your favorite liquor
    13. Unplug network cable
    14. Return to step 3 for new Internet sessions

    What could be simpler?

    • Re:This isn't really a problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spetiam ( 671180 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:09PM (#11715989) Journal
      Deep Freeze [faronics.com] is much simpler.
      • That looks like a cool product. When I read the page you linked, I saw "Completely invulnerable to hacking", and I thought "h4w h4w h4w", just like that, with numbers and in italics.

        Sorry, I've been channeling Steven Wright since wednesday. Which is really strange because he's not dead. And may be why I'm not funny when I do it.

    • Re:This isn't really a problem (Score:4, Interesting)

      by JQuick ( 411434 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:10PM (#11716008)
      What could be simpler?

      Either install a non-Windows OS on your existing hardware or buy a Mac. Linux, any BSD, or Macos X are simpler choices. BSD or Linux are harder in the short run but require less on-going maintenance once the user is settled in. Macos X requires changing both hardware and software, but is likely to be an easier transition for most users.

      Whether you like it or not, the Wintel platform is no longer a very good choice for the average computer user, and has become a quite unpleasant environment for most people.

    • Re:This isn't really a problem (Score:5, Funny)

      by uberdave ( 526529 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:30PM (#11716298) Homepage
      1. Knock back 3 or more shots of your favorite liquor
      2. Buy new PC
      3. DO NOT PLUG IN NETWORK CABLE
      4. Image drive to external storage wth Ghost or the like
      5. Come to the realization that you don't have external storage
      6. Knock back 3 more shots of your favorite liquor
      7. Buy some external storage
      8. Plug in network cable
      9. Connect to Internet. Save any info needed for storage
      10. Unplug network cable
      11. Print all info obtained
      12. Plug external storage back in
      13. What the...?! Where did this spyware come from?
      14. Realize you screwed up the install
      15. Knock back 3 or more shots of your favorite liquor
      16. Search for the install disks
      17. Realize that the computer didn't come with Windows CD
      18. Knock back 3 or more shots of your favorite liquor
      19. Screw it! Download Gentoo

  • They should know (Score:5, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:59PM (#11715872) Homepage
    They are the ones who made it impossible to delete Internet Exploiter after all.

    • Re:They should know (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Oriumpor ( 446718 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:25PM (#11716235) Homepage Journal
      Just cause you can't do something doesn't mean it's impossible:

      thishouseisclear.bat
      echo doh>c:\progra~1\Intern~1\iexplore.exe.new
      attrib +r +a +s +h iexplore.exe.new
      move c:\progra~1\Intern~1\iexplore.exe c:\progra~1\Intern~1\iexplore.bak
      echo doh >c:\progra~1\Intern~1\iexplore.exe
      attrib +r +a +s +h c:\progra~1\Intern~1\iexplore.exe
      Moments later the fixit wizard will more than likely pop up, hit cancel, and yes. Viola.
      • Now, hold onto yourselves...there's one more thing.

        A terrible spyware is in your system. So much rage, so much betrayal. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know what hovers over your kernel but it was strong enough to punch a hole in your security and take control away from you. It keeps system calls very close to it and away from the kernel. It lies to you...it does things only a geek can understand. It has been using your system to infect others. To your kernel, it simply is another system

  • Argument for Partitioning (Score:3, Interesting)

    by generationxyu ( 630468 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:01PM (#11715886) Homepage
    The Windows installer should have a partition editor, and some information about partitioning. It should allow you to easily install Windows on a separate partition from your data.

    Then you can keep /home on a separate partition, /var on a sep...

    Oh wait.

    • Re:Argument for Partitioning (Score:5, Informative)

      by slaker ( 53818 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:15PM (#11716080)
      There does exist a tool called "linkd" in the Windows 2003 Server resource kit, which allows you to set mount points via the command line.

      So you install a system. Use two partitions. Pull the drive. Install 2nd drive on working windows machin. Copy the "Documents and Settings" to the second partition of the newly installed drive. Then use linkd to create a "Documents and Settings" mount point from one partition to the other.

      As a semi-serious builder/hobbyist, when I build a system, I use preconfigured sysprep images where I have already done this (the mount point linkage IS copied by programs like ghost that support NTFS5). I can restore a single partition or the whole disk. Either way. I distribute a restore DVD to my customers that can fix their spyware- and virus-hosed Windows installs without killing all the pictures they took with their digital camera etc.

      It took me a bit of fiddling to make sure I have the process right, but for the number of times it's saved me two hours' work, I almost want to cry.

  • Still behind the times (Score:5, Funny)

    by SeanTobin ( 138474 ) * <byrdhuntr AT hotmail DOT com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:01PM (#11715887)
    Well, at least Windows is catching up. We've had rootkits on linux forever! :)

  • Just do what UNIX people do (Score:4, Funny)

    by temojen ( 678985 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:01PM (#11715889) Journal
    Boot a clean kernel from removeable, non-writeable media (closed-session CD or write-protected floppy) when doing the rootkit detection. (some details are left to the reader as an exercise)

  • I am not surprised... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:02PM (#11715898) Homepage Journal
    I spent almost two weeks trying to clean the VX2 spyware from a computer that belonged to one of my brothers in law... only to learn the only way to kill this p* of s* is to remove the infected hard disk, plug it into another (uninfected) computer and reformat the whole thing. I kid you not.

    I stopped providing "free technical support" to my brothers in law a short while after that episode. And yes, my machines run Linux or OpenBSD.

  • Don't get too smug... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:03PM (#11715922) Homepage
    ...rootkits for Linux are also a bitch to find and get rid of. It's only because we have had this risk for longer that we have good tools to find, remove and otherwise manage the risk... but how many Linux users actually do this?

    Probably the same five who spool logs to another sever as well as write-only tape and run everything in chroot I suspect.

  • Bruce Schneier on the Prototype Detection Tool (Score:5, Informative)

    by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:04PM (#11715927) Homepage
    Bruce covered the tool in a recent post [schneier.com] on his blog. He says:
    This is a really interesting technical report from Microsoft. It describes a clever prototype -- called GhostBuster -- they developed for detecting arbitrary persistent and stealthy software, such as rootkits, Trojans, and software keyloggers. It's a really elegent idea, based on a simple observation: the rootkit must exist on disk to be persistent, but must lie to programs running within the infected OS in order to hide.


    Here's how it works: The user has the GhostBuster program on a CD. He sticks the CD in the drive, and from within the (possibly corrupted) OS, the checker program runs: stopping all other user programs, flushing the caches, and then doing a complete checksum of all files on the disk and a scan of any registry keys that could autostart the system, writing out the results to a file on the hard drive.

    Then the user is instructed to press the reset button, the CD boots its own OS, and the scan is repeated. Any differences indicate a rootkit or other stealth software, without the need for knowing what particular rootkits are or the proper checksums for the programs installed on disk.

    Simple. Clever. Elegant.

    In order to fool GhostBuster, the rootkit must 1) detect that such a checking program is running and either not lie to it or change the output as it's written to disk (in the limit this becomes the halting problem for the rootkit designer), 2) integrate into the BIOS rather than the OS (tricky, platform specific, and not always possible), or 3) give up on either being persistent or stealthy. Thus this doesn't eliminate rootkits entirely, but is a pretty mortal blow to persistent rootkits.

    Of course, the concept could be adopted for any other operating system as well.

    This is a great idea, but there's a huge problem. GhostBuster is only a research prototype, so you can't get a copy. And, even worse, Microsoft has no plans to turn it into a commercial tool.

    This is too good an idea to abandon. Microsoft, if you're listening, you should release this tool to the world. Make it public domain. Make it open source, even. It's a great idea, and you deserve credit for coming up with it.

    Any other security companies listening? Make and sell one of these. Anyone out there looking for an open source project? Here's a really good one.

    Note: I have no idea if Microsoft patented this idea. If they did and they don't release it, shame on them. If they didn't, good for them.

  • Impossible to clean now (Score:3, Insightful)

    by totallygeek ( 263191 ) <sellis@totallygeek.com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:04PM (#11715929) Homepage
    The obscure registry and assinine DLL structure, coupled with incomplete process lists and poorly-defined startup parameters make most spyware impossible to scrape off a system to date.

    • Not really. You can easily spot all the hooks in the IE registry entries. If you're too confused by the registry, get "HijackThis". There are only four places an autostart entry could be (just repeated in the user half of the registry), probably two less places in an XP system. Fake drivers load in one of two places, as do fake DLLs. I'd say use system file checker too, but it's too stupid to realize the difference between a corrupted file and a legitimately patched one.

      It's not rocket science, but what ma

  • Here's the link to a free SP2 CD from Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)

    by xTK-421x ( 531992 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:05PM (#11715941) Homepage
    Install SP2 before you connect a Windows XP machine to the internet.

    The last time I connected a fresh Windows XP RTM box to the internet, it was infected with MS Blaster in 6 minutes.

    Windows XP Service Pack 2 on CD FREE [microsoft.com]

  • Windows is catching up to Linux! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:05PM (#11715942)
    I remember attempting to clean systems that had the Linux Rootkit [ossec.net] installed on it in the past. Can't trust results of ps, can't trust results of netstat, can't trust anything.

    I can't even imagine having this type of situation on a Windows box. There's just so many more places to hide things and most even technically knowledgable people wouldn't know what to do if their favorite process list application or network connection lister only shows you what the spyware author wants you to see.

    If you can even discern there is a problem, re-formatting is your only hope.

  • This is the Legion of Doom Reporting (Score:3, Funny)

    by wazzzup ( 172351 ) <astromacNO@SPAMfastmail.fm> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:07PM (#11715969)
    Microsoft Warns of Impossible to Clean Spyware

    Bizarro: On Bizarro world people like spyware. People no clean from computer. Go now live to Solomon Grundi.

    Solomon Grundi: Errrr! Solomon Grundi say Microsoft full of crap. Solomon Grundi crush Microsoft like piece of paper.

    Bizzaro: This Legion of Doom reporting. Back to Zonk at Slashdot.

  • So? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ViceClown ( 39698 ) * on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:11PM (#11716021) Homepage Journal
    Big deal! Linux has had this for like... ever now!

    Oh wait... ;-)

  • recovering from kernel mode rootkits is hard... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrhandstand ( 233183 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:12PM (#11716044) Journal
    but not impossible. In laymans terms it means you can't trust the OS to provide your user space applications with correct data. Boot into an alternative OS (Knoppix), and you can then run cleanup tools.

    It's also possible to use a software hardening tools to prevent changes to the kernel (can't remember the exact company, think the name was "Server-Lock", or something like that).

    The real answer is layered security, well managed backup and data protection strategies, and the understanding that no networked PC is immune.

  • Non infected scanner? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kelerain ( 577551 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .retsampam_cva.> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:14PM (#11716065)

    Wouldn't it still be quite possible to scan the system from a non infected source, such as the UBCD4Win [ubcd4win.com]? Its a bootable cd, like knoppix and others, but with a light version of windows XP and a ton of cleaning tools. I use it regularly for cleaning spyware and viruses off thoroughly infected systems.

    It's be able to cope with systems having hundreds of virii and such. If you trust it to remove simpler malware, then ingrained rootkits should be a similar problem, for an 'external' system. Not to mention it has all the critical XP system files handy for replacements. A bit easier than the 'nuke it all' aproach, which is beginning to sound like 'reboot and see if the problem goes away'.

  • In defense of Microsoft.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by GeneralEmergency ( 240687 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:16PM (#11716093) Journal

    ...Uhhh. Errrr. Ummmm.

    Ok. I got nothing.

  • Hmm (Score:5, Informative)

    by ctr2sprt ( 574731 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:17PM (#11716121)
    Maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem like anything new. Google for HackerDefender, I'm sure you'll find some relevant links. It intercepts the appropriate system calls to make itself completely invisible: it hides its processes as it's running, it hides the services that start them, etc. I've been seeing it on my employer's Windows servers for quite some time. There are ways to clean it, though they could of course be circumvented as well. The foolproof way to remove it is to boot from a special Windows boot CD and delete the files it uses.

    Unless there's something really new and complex going on here, not only is this not new, but IT professionals already have ways of dealing with it. In our case, on a live system with one reboot required. I wouldn't call it minor, certainly (10 minutes of downtime is 10 minutes of downtime), but... hell, if script kiddies have been using this for months and months...

  • Happened to me 2 days ago. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LePrince ( 604021 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:20PM (#11716145)
    I was at work, and I'm the only person in our helpdesk to "de-spywarise" the company's PC (I'm the only 2nd level tech analyst). I got a laptop yesterday that was infected with numerous spywares. After removing most of them with HijackThis, Spybot, CWShredder, there was a rogue entry to a file named "elitegfk.exe" in the registry that, as soon as I removed it, came back.

    Easy enough I thought, I'll just remove physically the file and the process. But no; the file wasn't ANYWHERE. Yes, I unchecked the "Hide protected system files" checkbox and I was on SHOW HIDDEN FILES, so ALL files were displayed. Heck, a dir /s on the root of the filesystem didn't even work... I thought that it would be possible that the file has another name, renamed itself to that, made its dirty business then renamed itself. I fired up Filemon (from Sysinternal) and sure enough, I see plenty of activity from a process named elitegfk.exe but STILL no sign of the file and/or process. I scanned the registry, and regedit.exe took 2 seconds to complete the scan... !

    I was on the verge of reformatting the system when I thought about something: I accessed the laptop through the admin share (\\computer\c$); sure enough, the file was there, sitting quietly sitting in c:\winnt\system32 (Win2k system)...

    The spyware prevented its own display through taskmgr, explorer and regedit. Regedt32 didn'T work, I got a virtual memory low error when I tried to scan the registry. The ONLY way I could see the file was through Filemon AND through the file sharing...

    I'm guessing next one will palliate to those things by attaching themselves to the most common troubleshootings tools like regmon and attach themselves to the SMB protocol to make sure they can't be displayed through the shares...

    This is getting ridiculous. Yes, you'll tell me to switch to Firefox, but we can't; I work in an artistic company with 1000+ PC and non-tech-savyy users, and tons of internal apps that were developped either with .Net or massive ACtiveX and other MS-only stuff, so we can't switch everything to Firefox, and having 2 browsers isn't a viable option either, since most of our users would simply get confused.

    Anyway.

    • Re:Happened to me 2 days ago. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:36PM (#11716352)
      you keep using that word ("can't"). I don't think it means what you think it means.

      of course you could switch browsers etc. what you mean is that it is more work than you are willing to do.

      just a nitpick on an otherwise interesting story.

      but I think it's an important nitpick because things can't keep going the way they are. with all the spam, spyware, viruses etc. there is going to come a point when businesses can't afford to have stupid employees running crap software.

      there ARE alternatives available for EVERYONE. adapting will be harder for some than others, but when the options become adapt or die, those using words like "can't" will find themselves on the wrong side of the evolutionary process.

    • Re:Happened to me 2 days ago. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lew Pitcher ( 68631 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:36PM (#11716361) Homepage

      You say

      This is getting ridiculous. Yes, you'll tell me to switch to Firefox, but we can't; I work in an artistic company with 1000+ PC and non-tech-savyy users, and tons of internal apps that were developped either with .Net or massive ACtiveX and other MS-only stuff, so we can't switch everything to Firefox, and having 2 browsers isn't a viable option either, since most of our users would simply get confused.
      and I say "That's the price of committing your business to propriatary software and interfaces that are someone elses profit centre."

      I know that this doesn't help you in your situation, but it does serve as a cautionary note for those who are not yet in that position, but are considering a move to propriatary software.

      Cheer up, though. Once the cost of supporting such a fragile situation exceeds the cost of migrating to a saner environment, you can put the case forth to move to a more secure, more open platform.

      Until then, you have my deepest sympathies.

    • tons of internal apps that were developped either with .Net or massive ACtiveX and other MS-only stuff,

      You know, if Microsoft ever does get a clue and fix the real security holes that let these spyware apps in in the first place, you'll have to rewrite all that stuff... because there's no way to fix Windows properly without changing the API.

      Bite the bullet already.

  • No Clean Boot? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) * on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:20PM (#11716160) Homepage Journal
    This is new?! It has always been orthodox antivirus doctrine, that you cannot count on being able to reliably clean a compromised system, while you are running that compromised system.

    Once you're infected, in order to detect or clean, you have to cold boot from known clean media. How to conveniently do this with Windows, I have no idea. (I used to sometimes check clients' machines by booting from an MS-DOS 6.22 floppy and running F-Prot, but it got harder'n'harder to make that work, for a variety of reasons. It eventually got where the only way I knew to reliably do it, was to physically transplant their hard disk to another Windows machine that was known to be ok. As this was usually impractical, expensive, etc, people stopped asking me for help. ;-)

    That's one of the reasons I consider the Windows AV market to mainly be snake-oil. In my limited experience with Windows, all the AV products I've seen, were just applications that the user was expected to run while possibly already compromised. It amused me that people paid for that stuff.

    If you're relaying on a scanner to detect and clean stuff after the fact, it's too late and you have no reasonable expectation of the product actually working. The only workable defense is to not get infected in the first place.

  • Security Levels (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:24PM (#11716221) Homepage
    It might help if Microsoft took an idea from BSD and made it possible to write-protect critical system files. That way, even if Joe PornMonger downloads worms and viruses while logged in as Administrator, the software would not be able to corrupt the operating system.

    I would also add a digital signature check to the bootstrap process, so that critical operating system code wouldn't be loaded unless it was signed by Microsoft.

  • Universal spyware solution! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by L1nux_L0ser83 ( 860647 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:36PM (#11716359) Homepage Journal
    Step 1 - Install linux -end

  • GHOSTBUSTERS! (Score:5, Funny)

    by d_jedi ( 773213 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:37PM (#11716380)
    Damn.. now I'm going to have that theme song in my head all day.. :->


    When there's something weird,
    and it don't look good
    Who ya gonna call?
    MI-CRO-SOFT??! (Wait..)

  • MS needs to release a bootable CD version (Score:3, Insightful)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:44PM (#11716462) Homepage Journal
    Sure, there's Bart's Preinstalled Environment [nu2.nu] bootable-cd-maker but MS really should release a bootable CD of its OSes, complete with cleanup- and other system-maintenance tools, to the community. Heck, I wouldn't even mind typing in my MS-Windows serial number or inserting a floppy that had a key-holding file copied from my hard disk every time I boot. Heck, I'll even pay $5 for the media and give Microsoft my name and address for a tool this useful.

    Knoppix rocks but there are some Windows-maintenance things that are much easier in a Windows-booted environment.

  • I know, right? (Score:3, Funny)

    by catdevnull ( 531283 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:54PM (#11716577)
    I mean, I've been trying to remove "explorer.exe" forever but that damn virus just won't go away.
  • how flawed this operating system is.

    Flaw #1: Any app can make arbitrary changes to the registry.
    Flaw #2: Any app can make arbitrary changes to the system files.
    Flaw #3: There is no "safe-mode" for core utilities, that would bypass any hijacking of system calls.

    Now can anybody explain to me what was the point of having "system, readonly" attributes, if they can just be turned off?

    Bill Gates never wanted to admit it. But this is just proof that Windows is nothing but MS-DOS "on steroids".

    Till a few days ago, I thought Linux would be the doom of Microsoft, defeating it like David defeated Goliath. But it turns out.. Goliath is about to die from a genetic anomaly. His very nature gave him a short lifespan.

    Oh joy...

  • Already in the wild? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kilocomp ( 234607 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:57PM (#11716614)
    One of the computers I support had a very nasty piece of spyware. I am not sure if it was exploiting the same things described by Microsoft, but it had the following symptoms:
    1. The process would not show up in task manager
    2. The related files would not show up in Explorer
    3. The related registry keys did not show up in regedit
    4. It some how was being called by Winlogin, so it ran even in safe mode.

    The way I detected it was by using several Sysinternals utilities http://www.sysinternals.com/ [sysinternals.com]. I have a script that uses pslist to monitor all processes on the network and this spyware was not smart enough to hide from that. A remote regedit session enabled you to see the related registry files. I had to use BartPE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ [nu2.nu] to mount the drive and clean out the related files and registry keys.

  • Beware of trusted computing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NullProg ( 70833 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @05:01PM (#11716663) Homepage Journal
    For microsoft to make a statment such as this could only mean one thing, they intend to push for trusted computing. Watch for them to lobby the government(s) for this:

    trusted computing [smh.com.au]

    Enjoy,

    • Re:Beware of trusted computing (Score:5, Informative)

      by dustmite ( 667870 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @06:46PM (#11717787)

      Yes, the "push" has begun ... "this is why computers should only run software from 'trusted', 'licensed' software vendors, and only on 'trusted', 'licensed' hardware", they will say ... the ultimate industry lockout to new potential competitors. And the sad thing is the excuse is a flawed premise; the current widespread and rapidly increasing malware problems are primarily because Windows is such a mess internally. Windows is imploding. And they must have known it was going to happen, over a year ago already, when they suddenly decided to start this massive new focus on security .. they knew their security sucked, they saw this coming, and now they're doing two things: (a) trying to patch Windows fast enough to prevent a total implosion and sudden mass exodus from the platform, and (b) try to capitalise on all the spyware and viruses to push 'trusted' computing platforms in order to gain control of the platform to create artificial barriers to entry for new small competitors.

  • Don't let users login as either administrators (Score:4, Insightful)

    by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @06:14PM (#11717476)
    I think the root of the problem is that most Windows systems (unless centrally managed) are usually setup so that normal users are logged in with elevated priveleges. If they were logged in without supernatural priveleges then the damage done by the spyware, viruses, and trojans, would be limited just to your account and files (e.g. the rest of the system, and certainly the kernel, would be unaffected). So, it seems like the best strategy to fight spyware is to end the current practice of using the administrator account. I am sure that microsoft could even do something to discourage its use.

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