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Walmart Photo Keychain Comes Preloaded With Malware
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Dec 28, 2008 11:46 PM
from the caveat-maxima-emptor dept.
from the caveat-maxima-emptor dept.
Blowit writes "With the Christmas holidays just past and opening up your electronic presents may get you all excited, but not for a selected lot of people who got the Mercury 1.5" Digital Photo Frame from Walmart (or other stores). My father-in-law attached the device to his computer and his Trend Micro Anti-virus screamed that a virus is on the device. I scanned the one I have and AVAST did not find any virus ... So I went to Virscan.org to see which vendors found what, and the results are here and here." Update: 12/29 05:44 GMT by T : The joy is even more widespread; MojoKid points out that some larger digital photo frames have been delivered similarly infected this year, specifically Samsung's SPF-85H 8-inch digital photo frame, sold through Amazon among other vendors, which arrived with "W32.Sality.AE worm on the installation disc for
Samsung Frame Manager XP Version 1.08, which is needed for using the SPF-85H as a USB monitor." Though Amazon was honest enough to issue an alert, that alert offers no reason to think that only Amazon's stock was affected.
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Disassembled? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one has disassembled the binary yet to see what it does? Does it call SetWindowsHookEx or something?
Re:Disassembled? (Score:5, Funny)
Funny thing though--it didn't run under Linux.
Does anything run under Linux? If only Linux could correctly run even a virus!
Parent
Were they made by Sony? (Score:3, Funny)
I also wonder if these files "DPFMate.exe" and "FEnCodeUnicode.dll" are something someone post-production put on the devices or if these files are some intended application?
Never using a digital photo frame before, I assume one simply copies image files into a mounted USB attached drive letter folder? (similar to how USB drives mount as a removable drive letter folder in Windows)
Re:Were they made by Sony? (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to explain how a rootkit could be considered anything but malware?
If they do nothing else, they compromise the security of a system.
Parent
Re:Were they made by Sony? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And about every security researcher on this planet agrees with me. Now, who would you rather listen to when it comes to the security concerns of your computer?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
u3, is a pain in the ass.
I managed to get rid of it though. I believe I killed the process in taskmgr while the stick was mounted, then used diskmgr to remove both partitions and repartition the disk as one full storage device rather then a large portion + a few megs for u3.
Oh and then just make a md5 rule to disallow any more instance of u3 to run so your users can't bring a fresh stick in and screw you up. Of course I'm speaking in windows, so ummv.
Good Luck,
DP
Old news (Score:4, Informative)
Packer (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a virus, it's just a exe packer they used.
Virus scanners have been labeling PE Packers as viruses for ages now, simply because a virus could be packed with them, and it's easier to pick out a packer header than a virus contained in it.
A lot of false positives are caused by this, and this looks like one of those cases based on what you linked. "Generic" "NSPack" "PossibleThreat" in the VirSCAN links give that away.
EXE/PE Packers simply compress a binary and decompress it on the fly, simply to save space or "load faster". Likely Walmart's programmers used one to keep the app's size small on a small device like that.
I've dealt with this situation in size-coding competitions before, and it's not fun. A lot of false positives are caused simply because a packer was used.
Fortunately, some of the better virus scaners actually unpack the software before checking it, or look for valid virus signatures instead of a simple Packer.
This basically is just a case of virus scan companies being lazy.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
those cases based on what you linked
-> those cases based on what the summary linked.
Slight target issue, appologies.
Re:Packer (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose it's no surprise then that Trend Micro (and likely Mcafee) went berserk while Avast did not? Although I think we had that controversy with the "clamAV vs Mcafee" virus scanning thing a year or two back.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, of course. If they didn't occasionally remind you of their existence, you might start to think you don't need them.
I haven't used a TSR virus scanner for years.
Through adequate user precautions, they're completely unnecessary.
With just a few simple precautions, even in Windows, you shouldn't need one either:
Re:Packer (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Packer (Score:5, Insightful)
Erh... not entirely true.
Yes, some virus scanners label anything that is runtime packed as malware, mostly because malware writers have been using packers as a cheap and easy disguise. But c'mon, that's so 2006.
Most AV suits today are able to unpack those runtime packers. I know of a suit that even sandboxes the program and executes it in a virtual machine to see if it results in some unpacked code.
Exepackers do NOT save you space, though! If anything, they're a memory bloat because more often than not you have the packed and the unpacked version of the program in ram, eating up space needlessly, so I stopped using them. Ram is precious, HD space isn't.
Parent
Re:Packer (Score:4, Insightful)
> Ram is precious, HD space isn't.
Speed is precious too. Executable packers make sense when your .exe is something like 40MB, because your stupid project manager forced you to include a bunch of idiotic resources into it, something along the lines of bitmaps and uncompressed wave files (true story!). It may sound funny, but with current run-of-the-mill consumer CPUs it is actually faster to read a small file from the HD and uncompress a resource than to wait for the whole executable to load all this bloat. Still, we're talking about a speed difference of around 300-400ms (yes, i took these out from my ass, but those were results of our crappy testbed), so it's not something a typical consumer would notice, although pretty numbers are a good thing when your boss doesn't know shit about computers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, some virus scanners label anything that is runtime packed as malware, mostly because malware writers have been using packers as a cheap and easy disguise. But c'mon, that's so 2006.
No, that's so previous century. I can remember the same issue with virus scanners in the DOS era, where unpacking may have actually saved some space on floppies and hard disks. With a friend, we had a warning about a virus in many .exe's using a heuristic scan, which turned out to be a popular unpacker. To put this in perspective, this was on a 25 MHz 386 DX, 1 MB internal RAM and a 40 MB hard drive - which cost me my entire holiday savings and then some.
As a funny side note, some DOS utilities like format
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What I meant is that hiding trojans behind executable packers is quite 2006'y. They don't really do that anymore, or at least more out of habit rather than actually hoping it would accomplish anything, since most of the better AV suits can unwrap even the most esotheric exepackers by now.
That's the burden of the AV writer. Whenever you want to lean back because you finally accomplished something (like, say, implementing an unpacker for every packer out there), they change the playfield and all you did was f
Re:Packer (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting. What packer would that be?
Parent
Re:Packer (Score:5, Funny)
It twas I, Peter Piper that purchased the picture peeper with a packer.
Parent
Re:Packer (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, advanced packers can detect this and can unpack differently if they are being unpacked by a virus scanner. Part of the point of using a packer for a virus is its ability to disguise the signature, so looking for a signature without unpacking is pointless.
If the virus can detect the antivirus, then your antivirus fails at sandboxing.
Parent
Re:Old news (Score:4, Insightful)
if it's already known to be such a problem, then why does Microsoft continue to enable autoplay by default in Windows? it's annoying enough to have autoplay applications pop up on the screen every time you insert a CD, but with USB flash drives it's just plain reckless.
USB storage devices are today's floppy disks. people use them to move files between computers, and a single device may get plugged into dozens of computers. so a lot of trojans/malware now detect when a removable drive is connected to the computer and automatically infect the drive and create an autorun.inf file so that the next computer that the thumbdrive/digital camera/iPod/PSP/etc. gets connected to will be infected as well.
yet most Windows users seem completely oblivious to this danger. and with the proliferation of USB storage devices this problem will just get worst. at the very least users should be prompted before executing an autoplay program.
Parent
Re:Old news (Score:4, Informative)
USB storage devices aren't actually eligible for AutoPlay. However, if the device presents itself as if it were, say, a CD-ROM, it is. This is how the U3 devices work, which present both a "CD" and a USB disk. The operating system can't really enforce policies on how USB devices present themselves to the system.
Also, my Vista machine, by default, does not actually run the AutoPlay executable without user confirmation.
Parent
Re:Old news (Score:5, Informative)
USB devices certainly are eligible for autoplay, they just prompt the user when the device is first connected by default. however, an autorun.inf file can still change the default action for that drive, so that when the user double clicks on the volume in My Computer, it will run the autplay program rather than open up the drive for browsing. and in that situation the user gets no warning.
and i'm not sure what U3 is, but i know that if a removable drive has a partition formated with CDFS, Windows will assume that it's a copy-protected CD and will allow autoplay without the user's consent regardless of your autoplay settings. i think this can be done with any USB drive, which in a way makes disabling autoplay or prompting the user useless. just one more way consumers get screwed by DRM i guess.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\autorun.inf]
@="@SYS:Does_Not_Exist"
This takes care of autorun.inf once and for all, you can even keep AutoPlay if you want it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
USB storage devices aren't actually eligible for AutoPlay. However, if the device presents itself as if it were, say, a CD-ROM, it is.
If the autorun.inf file is like this:
[autorun]
open=autorun.exe
shell=explore
Shell\open=&Open
Shell\open\Command=autorun.exe
Shell\explore=&Explore
Shell\explore\Command=autorun.exe
then autorun.exe will be executed when user doubleclicks on their USB device in "My Computer". If you don't believe me - try it out...
I think this will not work on Vista or if autorun.inf reading is disabled, but it will work on XP even if AutoPlay is disabled using group policy editor.
Re: (Score:3)
That is indeed one of the stupidest features ever put in Windows, and there is no reliable way to disable it. I don't want autolaunch. I've never wanted it. I never will want it. And yet, I'm stuck with it for all eternity on every Windows machine I will ever use.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is indeed one of the stupidest features ever put in Windows, and there is no reliable way to disable it.
There's a registry hack on google.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Disable service called Shell Detection something. That will switch off Autoplay for everything globally. Easiest solution and saves you memory and load time.
Turning off AutoRun in Windows XP (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Turning off AutoRun in Windows XP (Score:5, Informative)
If you're really worried, you should disable it at the driver level rather than the explorer policy level.
For Win2k/XP (maybe Vista), open up regedit and find this key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom]
REG_DWORD "Autorun" - set it to 0
Note: Must be logged on as an admin.
This disables autorun at the driver level, rather than explorer policy level. It may take a reboot to take effect. It should disable all autorun handlers/hooks, effectively turning drives into regular folders. (they just "open")
Autorun.inf files will not automatically run or prompt you to run - actually, on my Win2k box, the right-click autorun option completely vanished!
Note: It doesn't seem to "spin-up" CDs anymore on my computer, until I go into My Computer. It gives it a nasty delay loading that folder, but I figure this is a good thing. It means it isn't accessing the CD or device at all until I tell it to.
Such is the price of security, I suppose!
Parent
Re:Old news (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that's _exactly_ the wrong way to go about this.
"Here, in order to stop your OS from doing stupid things that get you infected, download this FREE utility from an obscure site that's too hip to spell '4' as 'for'. It's harmless, I PROMISE!"
That's the other kind of attack vector that ends people in trouble with their machines.
And reading the other post above suggesting different obscure registry settings: EXCUSE ME, this is 2009 (almost), I thought we were _advancing_ on usability. This is just sick.
Parent
Did you tell Walm*rt? (Score:5, Informative)
Write them a letter telling them what you found. Try this link http://walmartstores.com/contactus/feedback.aspx [walmartstores.com] to get to their headquarters, where something might get done about it. Include enough technical detail for them to replicate the problem, especially the model number or any other identifying information from the package.
If you want someone to care enough to write back, try to not sound accusatory or threaten to sue them. I'm sure they get enough of that on a daily basis.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This looks more like a false positive then anything, but unless Blowit actually submitted these files to all the antivirus vendors or went through one of the folks in the industry to fast-track it for checking there's no way to tell. There's a few places where this can be done(dslreports being my favorite), and send it off to the lab and see if it's a false positive or not and get an update pushed.
There's been innumerable cases in the past where files have been marked as virus/trojans due to similar encodi
false positives? (Score:5, Informative)
Looks to me like they used some kind of packer to make the exe's small to not take up a lot of space on the device (understandably). A lot of scanners will automatically detect packing as malware and, due to the nature of how a packer works, trojan is the logical choice. I have a similar problem with anything I compile with delphi since a lot of malware is developed in delphi.
My 2 cents worth...
that's why USB autoplay is a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
this time it seems like it was the vendor's screwup, which is very rare, but it's very easy for someone to have a clean USB stick, then plug it into an infected PC and unknowingly get a trojan written to the USB stick.
i recently had close call myself when i took my PSP to work and plugged it into a workstation (i had some utilities and e-books saved on the memory stick). when i got home and plugged the PSP into my desktop, i noticed the PSP memory stick was displayed with an odd icon in My Computer. so i looked at the root directory and found a suspicious .exe file that i hadn't placed there, which was also referenced by a new autorun.inf file.
with thumbdrives, external hard drives, portable media players, and other flash memory devices becoming increasingly common, i expect more and more malware writers will exploit them as an infection vector, especially as autoplay is usually enabled by default on Windows systems. the only reason i had autoplay disabled was because i found it annoying, and that's the only reason i lucked out.
Re:that's why USB autoplay is a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Funnily enough, there's a rumour going around that USB sticks were used to hack into the Pentagon:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/25.47.html#subj5 [ncl.ac.uk]
From the link:
If true, it was a simple but brilliantly effective method. Someone infected thumb drives with the WORM then dropped them around the Pentagon parking lot. The employees, picked them up, took them into their offices and plugged them into their office computers to determine the owner of the drive.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's frankly nonsense about disabling USB ports. The military uses USB sticks extensively to transmit bulky data in the field relatively securely, without relying on vulnerable network connectivity or complex intervening VPN or unreliable transfer technologies. And far too many peripheral devices, from mice to graphics plotters to speakers, are now USB, so you can't simply plug that port or disable them in the BIOS.
More sophisticated tools to block digital storage on removable media are available, but the
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Viruses exploiting the AutoPlay is nothing new and going wild. The other day I went to a printing shop with stuff I was going to print stored on a USB stick. I plugged it in the Windows box at the shop and it got infected. Three "folder" icons appeared in the Windows file manager but they were not directories -- they were trojan executables with the icons identical to the default one for directories. They all ended in .exe but the Windows file manager hid the extension part of filename by default so a carel
inconclusive... (Score:4, Insightful)
According to those links you provided, Trend Micro did not find anything wrong. (could be different settings, version, &c.) However... many of the positives were heuristic and, as further evidence of this, the identifications were not consistent.
Maybe it's just badly coded junk; nearly as bad, perhaps, but exactly what you'd expect from the Wal*Mart holiday special.
(insert obligatory comment about slashdot editors)
Not necessarily infected (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that it might be a false positive. Those happen, and sometimes you find the same false positive in more than one AV product when they simply copy from each other instead of creating their own definitions from the real thing.
An example is the game The Witcher, which triggered a false AV protection in ESET Nod32 antivirus. Then, suddenly, a couple of months later, a couple of other products also started seeing a virus here. There was none -- the packer that had been used by the game had also been used for a virus, and the signature was copied from NOD32 to some less successful AV programs without further ado.
So, don't just take it on face value that there is a virus -- especially not when none of the really big players with low false positive rates can detect it. It may be one, but don't blindly assume so.
And let's see.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm... I see a bunch of AV's that are prone to give false positives give positives, while F-Secure, Kaspersky, Antivir, AVG, McAffee don't give anything off, Gee, could it possibly be that it's a false positive? [Hurr]OH I DUNNO[/Durr]
For those sarcastically challenged.
Yes, it's to 99.99% sure it's a false positive.
Another conspiracy! (Score:3, Funny)
Why are you so shocked? (Score:5, Interesting)
You think they buy virus scanner software in a Chinese factory? No, these guys cut every corner they can to meet those razor thin profit margins.
Note that none of the major commercial scanners... (Score:3, Interesting)
I note that virtually none of the major commercial scanners found anything.
I have trouble believing there's any significant malware that is generally known to the AV industry but is not detected by any of McAfee, Sophos, Symantec or Kaspersky. Particularly when the industry depends so heavily on scaring people into believing they are likely to become infected.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You must be joking, they know about all the viruses, they write them.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Christmas is a twelve day feast that starts on Dec 25, and doesn't let up until Epiphany.
Re:Can't seem to run the virus on my mac (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/ [vmware.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why invest in more intelligent heuristics and R&D when you could simply invest in fancy popup bubbles and slowing the customer's computer to a crawl with nagware! That's what happens when marketing takes over, folks!