Energizer USB Battery Charger Software Infects PCs 260
swandives writes "Researchers at US-CERT have warned that software accompanying the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a Trojan that gives hackers total access to a Windows PC. The product was sold in the US, Latin America, Europe and Asia starting in 2007. Upon installation, the software creates the file 'Arucer.dll,' a Trojan that listens for commands on TCP port 7777. Upon receiving instructions, the Trojan can download and execute files, transmit files stolen from the PC, or tweak the Windows registry. Uninstalling the software disables the automatic execution of the Trojan. Users can also remove Arucer.dll from Windows' system32 directory and reboot the machine to disable the backdoor component."
Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Informative)
There have been reports of Arucer.dll utilizing 100% CPU as far back as mid 2007. It was originally included by Energizer and used to check that the device was indeed connected to the machine.
They aren't sure how long dll has been infected, but all signs point to the entire time (back to May 2007). Considering how many forum posts have issues with the dll going back 2.5 years, you'd think someone would have figured it out long ago.
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I'd say that determining your fuel utilization is basic competency for driving a car
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd say that determining your fuel utilization is basic competency for driving a car
So, how can I tell how many Joules my computer has used? Huh - and I thought computers were my forte...
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:4, Funny)
What, you don't own a kill-a-watt so you can determine that? So much for being a geek!
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biggest ripoff ever.
I use a modified multi outlet strip with banana plugs and an amp meter. more accurate, just as easy, and you can say "here hold these wires" and shock the living hell outa someone. Oh and you can measure neutral-ground leakage as well.
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:4, Insightful)
A driver should be aware of their fuel economy, but it's more likely the job of a specialist to determine why the fuel economy has changed. Knowing if the difference is due to the air filter/oil filter/radiator/spark plug/exhaust/fuel filter, or any of the other parts which could cause this problem is generally left to someone knowledgeable. The end-user should only be expected to notice the issue and request help, which it seems many did by requesting assistance on the company forums.
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:4, Informative)
Since when has determining your processor utilization been considered basic competency? Get off you high horse.
I think it's intellectually dishonest to mention processor utilization as though that were the only possible way. I notice this frequently, that people are often rather eager to excuse and defend incompetent users out of some misguided sympathy for them. Real compassion for them would mean teaching, explaining, and providing good references for their edification. It would not mean excusing their failures or sugarcoating their incompetence. Any literate adult can achieve competency with a computer, and most problems that make the network a worse place for everyone directly involve users who lack knowledge, so why the "get off your high horse" spite towards those who expect better?
If anything, I think the "high horse" is the belief that users will always be ignorant, will always be victims of these security issues, and can never overcome them. It is not the belief that they can and should overcome them. That's especially evident to me when you have to (intentionally or otherwise) zero in on one particularly unlikely means of detection because you think ignoring other possibilities helps your case. This is known as confirmation bias, incidentally. In response, I'll give you a plausible scenario for which CPU utilization need not be measured.
I'll give another scenario under which this could have been detected. Here, when I say "firewall", I refer to Komodo, ZoneAlarm, and other software firewalls that are commonly available for Windows and/or free of charge, and are installed on millions of machines.
Running a firewall that could have alerted the user to suspicious/unprompted network activity is basic competency, right up there with running a virus scanner and an anti-spyware scanner. For Windows, these tools can be regarded as "maintainence", and anyone who operates a machine without correctly maintaining it (personally or by seeking help) cannot be rightly called competent. Now, basic competency may or may not correctly interpret that network activity, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't take computer expertise to say "hey, this firewall keeps asking me about things I don't understand and did not set up myself, so maybe I should get this computer looked at by a techie." At that point you're no longer talking about average users and whether they can achieve competency.
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In many ways we are all guilty of being ignorant in one area or an other. However saying someone is stupid for not knowing how to do something or even look up how to do it is rude and unwarranted.
I have seen and met a lot of people who wouldn't know or even know to check the CPU usage on their PC however they are actually very smart and intelligent individuals. Why because they really could care less about their computer. It is an appliance for them, it does what they want them to do. It is using 100% cp
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I was talking about this in terms of competency, not in terms of stupidity. For example, I am not a competent surgeon because I know absolutely nothing about surgery. That doesn't mean I'm stupid, it means I haven't gone to medical school. When I personally spoke about "competency" I meant it in this sense. I
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Informative)
Since about the time Windows came out with their Task Manager. Basic competency. Very basic. No one suggests that finding the executable, and disassembling it to find out what makes it tick is part of basic competency, but opening task manager to see which of your 97 active processes is using all of your computer time is indeed "basic".
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:4, Funny)
Somewhere, above, in this conversation, someone already stated something to the effect "incompetent != stupid". People who can't find task manager may or may not be stupid, but they are definitely IN-FUCKING-COMPETENT!
Further, it has already been stated that you do the incompetent no service, and no justice, by making excuses for them. You'll do them a greater service by pointing out that they are incompetent, then help them to become competent.
Here, you are just running at the mouth, looking for a fight, when you don't even appear to understand what the fight is about.
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Questioning other people's sense of security is usually a sign of an overinflated sense of superiority.
Kindly point out where I said that I'm "smarter" than people who can't find task manager. Can't find it? I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth, Mr. A.C.
I am incompetent in many areas. I probably couldn't get a Cessna started up, let alone take off with it. I CAN fire up a D-9 Caterpillar, and make a decent attempt at grading your property. Does my incompetence with aircraft make me stupid? Does
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And, I insist, if a person is using a computer, and doesn't even know how to find the task manager, then he isn't competent to use the computer.
Car analogy? Where's the speedometer? The oil pressure guage? Ampmeter? Oh, you say, I have nothing but idiot lights, no guages? Fine. DO YOU SEE THE IDIOT LIGHTS? If you can't see the idiot lights, you obviously shouldn't be driving. Assuming you have guages, do you bother to look at them from time to time? No? Again, incompetent.
You'll remember, I didn't
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For as long as there's been a tab for it in the task manager. Get off your low horse.
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The competent help will tell him to press Ctrl-Alt-Del, the click Task Manager, and then chose the appropriate tab to display the processes, etc.
However, those noobs are completely oblivious to their computer slowing down in such a dramatic way, and don't even think there could be anything wrong with it...
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I was referring to the fact that so many people have had this problem with that DLL that you would think some IT people would have picked up on it...this is usually how malware is discovered.
It's not often that the smart IT people get infected and then think up a fix. It is the regular user that gets infected, calls an IT person, then the IT person figures out what is going on.
Based on the volume of posts for 2.5 years regarding this DLL and its high CPU usage (the users did see this), you'd think some IT p
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Funny)
Duracell(r)
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Or rather: Duracell®
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Funny)
The should all be charged with assaulting battery!
-rimshot-
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Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Insightful)
you think the Term 'hacker' and the term 'criminal' are mutually exclusive?
I know we spent a decade trying to show the world they are different,
but even a technically skilled criminal can be a hacker.... he just has to wear a black hat while he does his deed.
Re:Near Anagram for Duracell (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but neither are the terms "accountant" and "embezzler," or "journalist" and "liar," or "priest" and "pedophile."
The problem with using the term "hacker" is as soon as you throw that term in to the conversation, it takes the spotlight off of the party that is actually responsible.
So Sony puts a root kit on your machine that could allow "hackers" to get control of it, it's those damn "hackers" who are the problem, not Sony. Perhaps not the best example to give, since Sony was heavily criticized for their actions (at least on Slashdot); but how many times have we seen stories about public servants losing laptops full of unencrypted information reported as "hackers could be accessing your private information."
The problem isn't some mythical "black hat" pounding furiously away at the keyboard as graphic images swirl around his head, it's that companies and government agencies are not taking due care with people private information, and frequently take liberties with their customers' property that would be considered criminal if it was your physical property they were abusing. Invoking the phrase "hacker" let's the real parties who are responsible off the hook.
In this case, I would be interested in knowing why Energizer has no idea how this trojan got in to their charger in the first place, and whether it was truly the work of a nefarious black hat, or a misguided attempt by the company to keep tabs on how customers are using their product.
Who knows, but as long as the focus is on "hackers" exploiting this trojan, rather than how it got bundled with the charger in the first place, it's unlikely we'll get the real story, or that the people who were really responsible will face any consequences.
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A clean uninstaller? wow! (Score:2)
Heck, I can't figure out how to disable half the auto-runs on my sister's laptop.
These guys definitely know what they're doing :)
Re:A clean uninstaller? wow! (Score:4, Funny)
I tried $sudo apt-get install arucer in Kubuntu, but the Trojan is not yet in the repository. Perhaps is should use $sudo dpkg and install it from the USB key it's self.
I wonder if Wine will run this?
Re:A clean uninstaller? wow! (Score:5, Funny)
Ubuntu does not equal Linux. Come on man! You probably have to wait for it to be packaged upstream. Besides, a DLL is a LIBRARY file. You should be looking for lib-arucer or something similar like waffles, or whatever the developer felt like naming it. If that doesn't work, try x-arucer, or switch to Gentoo. I am sure they can get it.
PS- Wine might run it, but you will probably need a patch. Try Cedega or Play-On-Linux, or qemu or dosbox.
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Silliness aside, this probably could've been avoided had Energizer made the device a generic one and just drawn power on that basis. No driver needed only MS to blame.
On second thought, I'm not sure I'd trust Windows to charge a battery correctly, it might end up owing millions.
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Ubuntu is actually just Windows Vista with a few custom themes, [xkcd.com] so the DLL should run just fine.
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Real men compile their USB-charger Trojans from source.
Software?! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a DUO because it can plug into the wall or into a computer. So it works without a computer. To get the computer to jack up the USB power output from the default 100mA, the device could identify itself as a hub -- no software required.
I get it that the software can monitor charging, report stuff, advertise... But how does Energizer feel now, with egg on their faces?
Re:Software?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does a USB-powered charger need software at all?
The question is why does it need software that listens for commands from the mothership?
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But how is Energizer supposed to let you know of amazing offers on things to buy without installing software???
They could do that with software that doesn't LISTEN for INCOMING connections....
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But you'd waste so much bandwidth that way if it has to poll the ad server every few seconds so you don't miss one important announcement that could change your life!
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Only appropriate, given that their mascot is a bunny.
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Just in time for Easter, too.
Re:Software?! (Score:4, Interesting)
I get it that the software can monitor charging, report stuff, advertise...
I always wondered, with the sheer amount of portable devices which charge over USB nowdays, why not put some manner of standardized charge reporting into the specs of the next version of USB, so that we don't need to bother with nonsense like installing a new program or drivers for each device just to monitor its charging on the computer (or whatever charger), if we do want monitoring and such? That way, we could just tack a charge indicator onto whatever the OS or windowing system uses to track connected USB devices, instead of X amount of additional programs displaying it in any variety of mismatched ways.
I mean, I'll grant that many devices just report their own charge on their own respective screens, so for things like phones or whatnot, it might not be that useful. Plus, my suggested scheme would quickly get shot down by companies like Energizer in this case when they realize revenue stream conduits^W^W^W customers wouldn't have a reason to install "special" drivers and programs loaded with ads...
Oh, yeah. That IS why it wouldn't get adopted. Hrm.
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They could still provide a spec-compliant addware client to their customers if they so chose.
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If an item just needs re-charging via USB I have been just plugging them into a powered USB hub.
I do it as an energy saving scheme, no need to keep the computer on just to recharge a device.
If the device is just recharging it doesn't need the computer to tell it when its done.
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> I always wondered, with the sheer amount of portable devices which charge
> over USB nowdays, why not put some manner of standardized charge reporting
> into the specs of the next version of USB
You'd be surprised how lax are the implementations to "standards". I've worked with both USB memory sticks for .mp3s and Bluetooth phones, and the code to handle them is a morass of special cases per manufacturer. Not including the version number differences. That's within the same interface version.
Imple
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I get it that the software can monitor charging, report stuff, advertise...
I always wondered, with the sheer amount of portable devices which charge over USB nowdays, why not put some manner of standardized charge reporting into the specs of the next version of USB, so that we don't need to bother with nonsense like installing a new program or drivers for each device just to monitor its charging on the computer (or whatever charger), if we do want monitoring and such? That way, we could just tack a charge indicator onto whatever the OS or windowing system uses to track connected USB devices, instead of X amount of additional programs displaying it in any variety of mismatched ways.
I mean, I'll grant that many devices just report their own charge on their own respective screens, so for things like phones or whatnot, it might not be that useful. Plus, my suggested scheme would quickly get shot down by companies like Energizer in this case when they realize revenue stream conduits^W^W^W customers wouldn't have a reason to install "special" drivers and programs loaded with ads...
Oh, yeah. That IS why it wouldn't get adopted. Hrm.
I have a better idea, Put the monitoring software on the device being charged.
Re:Software?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Another commenter notes that the language code of the trojan is Chinese.
I think that American businesses should strongly reconsider the merits of having their goods produced in a highly authoritarian state who is known to employ hackers.
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Another commenter notes that the language code of the trojan is Chinese.
I think that American businesses should strongly reconsider the merits of having their goods produced in a highly authoritarian state who is known to employ hackers.
I think that would rule out the USA as well, at least at the federal level.
Fucking communist! (Score:3, Funny)
Look damnit, if the free market thought there was an advantage to doing things your way then we'd all be growing our own battery chargers on government plantations. You presume to tell American businesses how to optimize their production lines? Nonsense and tosh! If you want something done a particular way, do it yourself! Your elitist attitude makes me sick.
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Hmmmm... being communists or being pwned by communists... decisions, decisions...
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I get it that the software can monitor charging, report stuff, advertise... But how does Energizer feel now, with egg on their faces?
They blame Microsoft/subcontractors/trojan writers/OpenSource hippies, and it will not have any consequences for them.
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Wrong. A device can only receive up to 100mA without asking for it (like a keyboard, mouse, etc.) The USB spec calls for a 500mA maximum. Many usb devices need more and use 2 ports (like external 2.5" hdds).
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You don't need a driver, there are standard ways to ask for more power.
Interesting detail in the DLL: (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah it was probably made in China, and typically nobody cares about QC/QA in the factory (or part of the QA is making sure the malware is installed ;) ).
I found malware on a supposedly new PNY usb drive about a year ago. Perhaps it was a repackaged item.
Anyway, didn't affect the machine I plugged it into since auto-run was disabled (like it should be).
This Trojan (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes (Score:5, Funny)
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No version for linux is a good thing.
Maybe the malware will run in wine. But why does it run anything? It doesn't need any form of software, it just needs to draw power from USB.
It just goes to show (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean seriously, drivers? For a battery charger? Unless they wanted to display a nifty "charge progress indicator" in the OS... But even then, do they not have a code review before it gets flashed onto the chip?
Told you so (Score:5, Interesting)
Some time back, when USB chargers started to appear at airports, I warned that this might happen. A public charging port is such an attractive attack vector.
Of course, the real problem is Windows's "autorun". It was a truly awful idea to have Windows run any executable that appears on any removable device or medium. That went in (in Windows 95, I think) when CDs were only manufactured by major vendors, before home CD writers or USB storage devices. So it probably seemed "safe" at the time.
Worse was making it very difficult to turn autorun off. [cert.org]
Re:Told you so (Score:5, Insightful)
No no, it didn't seem safe at the time. Everyone who didn't have their head inside their kiester knew it was a gaping security hole.
Golly, I wish some of those people worked at Microsoft.
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Yes but there's no need to plug that hole with your head! You can use... an album cover...
Mondays...
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No no, it didn't seem safe at the time. Everyone who didn't have their head inside their kiester knew it was a gaping security hole.
Golly, I wish some of those people worked at Microsoft.
That's partly because Microsoft (and, by extension, a large chunk of the worlds' Windows software developers) have taken the approach that a PC is only ever used by one person who generally speaking knows what they want the computer to do and can be trusted to do the right thing when the situation demands it - despite decades of experience to the contrary.
To be fair, this attitude has become much less prevalent in their products since XP became the mainstream version of Windows, and even less so with the in
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No no, [autorun] didn't seem safe at the time. Everyone who didn't have their head inside their kiester knew it was a gaping security hole.
The security hole is running an unknown/unverified program, and anybody without the sense to disable autorun is going to just click on the installer and get the trojan anyway. Autorun doesn't make the problem worse, it just makes the computer more convenient for most users.
Autorun is not the security hole. As usual, users are the security hole.
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This isn't an issue with the charger presenting itself to the OS as a USB mass storage device ; this is an issue with the management software that comes with the device (or you can download it) and presents a graphical charge level monitor.
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That went in (in Windows 95, I think) when CDs were only manufactured by major vendors, before home CD writers or USB storage devices. So it probably seemed "safe" at the time.
Many people questioned the safety of autorun win Win95. Auto-running from removable media had already been a problem - one of the first viruses documented as being in-the-wild was distributed on Apple floppies and got itself run via that system's autorun feature (unlike PCs descended from the IBM line and its compatibles several machines and OSs,Apple's machines and Commodor's Amiga lines being two examples, supported detecting a new floppy being inserted) and that was long before Windows 95 hit the market.
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At least Windows XP SP2 replaced AutoRun with AutoPlay. Devices (other than music CDs) no longer auto-run, instead asking you what you want to do with it, albeit with the AutoRun-specified item at the top of the list.
This was changed further in Windows Vista/7, so that USB/FireWire drives don't even acknowledge that they have an AutoRun option. Which caused U3 [u3.com] to blatantly abuse this by pretending its U3 partition is a CD-ROM.
Purchasers should have known something was wrong (Score:5, Funny)
if only because of the giant wooden Energizer Bunny on the packaging.
Re:Purchasers should have known something was wron (Score:5, Funny)
Not true. If it had been a giant wooden bunny, they'd have known that Lancelot, Galahad, and Bedevere had forgotten to get inside in the first place.
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USB? Software? On a BATTERY CHARGER? (Score:5, Funny)
What the... WHYY?
My battery charger takes four batteries and goes into the power socket. That’s it.
I don’t see why in the world a charged would need more than this.
It’s like having a supercomputer to control a toaster. It makes no sense at all.
In my eyes, those who bought that thing, deserve what they got.
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In my eyes, those who bought that thing, deserve what they got.
Those who brought windows deserve what they got.
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In my eyes, those who bought that thing, deserve what they got.
Those who brought windows deserve what they got.
Wow, way to wish doom on 90% of the computer using populace. That doesn't make you sound like a crazed zealot at all. That kind of talk is sure to gain support to your ideology.
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There could be times when you don't have access to a power socket - or your battery charger won't work in the power sockets (say you visit another continent).
In which case, you've got your business laptop, so you can charge your batteries for your MP3 player.
It shouldn't need software though, I'll agree with that.
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It’s like having a supercomputer to control a toaster. It makes no sense at all.
Plain old toast is so retro. I prefer my toast printed with nice designs and patterns:
http://www.inseq.net/zuse.html [inseq.net] :)
Outsourcing / QA / Negligence (Score:5, Interesting)
If corporations feel that they must outsource production of devices like these, they damn well better be prepared to do thorough in-house testing before they release malware to the public. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they were probably unaware of this trojan, but that makes them no less negligent.
Re:Outsourcing / QA / Negligence (Score:5, Interesting)
You're assuming they didn't outsource engineering, QA, security, and testing.
You have the olden days idea, that China only manufactures.
I would not be surprised to learn Energizer-USA in 2010 is no more than an overpriced CEO and some marketing folks.
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(I've seen it happen more than I can count, and that's a pretty big number.)
Easy to uninstall (Score:2)
Anyway, a proper firewall (that at the very least dont let connect to your machine thru not specifically enabled ports) should had stopped most of it.
Let me at him (Score:2, Funny)
Country of manufacture? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would kind of guess "Made In China", and the special edition to the software could easily have been added at this phase. It makes you start to wonder about a lot of products made there, and what they could also be doing. Even something like a motherboard could have all kinds of things going on at a very low level, and who would have a clue?
Just wait until... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just wait until... (Score:5, Funny)
An AutoStart Fix for Windows XP and W2K (Score:5, Informative)
Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer
Value Name: NoDriveTypeAutoRun
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: hex: 0x03fffffff
Re:An AutoStart Fix for Windows XP and W2K (Score:5, Funny)
It's things like this that just go to show why windows will never be ready for the desktop.
Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
It gives hex dumps of some of the commands. (Since some of them would obviously require arguments, they clearly can’t be full packets, but they’re signatures of each particular packet.)
All of them follow this pattern:
C2 E5 E5 E5 9E
8 bytes that are different for each command
C8
4 bytes that vary
C8 D1
3 bytes that vary
C8
4 bytes that vary
C8
12 bytes that vary
98 E5
Graphing the sequences [dumpt.com] showed very obvious trends: Lots of values clustered in approximately the 155-170 range, and lots in the 200-220 range. Also, the 3-byte field that is different for every command has a different clustering pattern.
XORing the patterns with 0-255 yielded the following at 229:
'\0\0\0{98D958FC-D0A2-4f1c-B841-232AB357E7C8}\0
'\0\0\0{F6C43E1A-1551-4000-A483-C361969AEC41}\0
'\0\0\0{783EACBF-EF8B-498e-A059-F0B5BD12641E}\0
'\0\0\0{EA7A2EB7-1E49-4d5f-B4D8-D6645B7440E3}\0
'\0\0\0{E2AC5089-3820-43fe-8A4D-A7028FAD8C28}\0
'\0\0\0{384EBE2C-F9EA-4f6b-94EF-C9D2DA58FD13}\0
'\0\0\0{4F4F0D88-E715-4b1f-B311-61E530C2C8FC}\0
Now, colour me surprised, but those look a damn awful lot like CLSIDs...
VERY INTERESTING.
Detect it with Nmap (Score:4, Informative)
I spent the morning reverse engineering the Trojan and wrote an Nmap script to detect if a remote system is infected. Hope it helps out: http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/?p=563 [skullsecurity.org].
Ron
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Yeah, the simple xor 'encryption' is pretty oldschool. I can't believe I didn't notice that right away myself. I didn't see it till I started looking at the send/recv functions.
As to the CLSID, good thought, but no -- the CLSID isn't a real CLSID, it's just a way of identifying its own commands. Basically, it's a list of if(!strcmpi(command, "clsid1")) { do_this() } elseif(!strcmpi(command, "clsid2")) { do_that() } etc.
It only has those 9 or so CLSID's included, and if it isn't on the list the command is
Not the least surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I would like to see some of these Windows ppl SUE Energizer and other companies for selling the products that infect their machines. Force them to pay out 10-100x what they made in profit. Once western companies realize the high costs of doing business there, then and only then will they stop.
Everyone throttle back for a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
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These usually have low mAh values, so that they can be charged reasonably fast and because almost a third of the actual battery is the usb plug and whatever else is needed. For example, what I see on the page is rated 1300 mAh, which sucks, because I can currently purchase 2700mAh batteries for less than the price of those batteries.
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Wow. That's exactly what I just posted.
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If it's anything like those cells [youtube.com] I'm not sure I'd want them...
np: Brian Eno - The Lost Day (Ambient 4: On Land)
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As noted above, because they suck in terms of capacity.
The DUO is a small battery charger anyway.