- Panda Software reports the appearance of a new worm called W32/Nachi.A -
Virus Alerts, by Panda Software (
http://www.pandasoftware.com)
Madrid, August 19 2003 - Panda Software's Virus Laboratory has reported the appearance of a new worm called W32/Nachi.A. This malicious code is programmed to exploit the RPC DCOM vulnerability that affects some versions of the Windows operating system in order to spread to as many computers as possible.
Nachi.A does not spread via e-mail but attacks remote machines via TCP/IP and tries to cause a buffer overflow in them. After doing this, the attacked computer is forced to download a copy of the worm, which is done through a TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) server incorporated in this worm.
This worm, which originated in China, can also use another exploit known as WebDav. Information about this exploit and the patch to fix it are available at the following address:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-007.aspThe worm is programmed to delete itself from the affected computer in 2004. Another interesting characteristic of Nachi.A is that it can uninstall the Blaster worm. In order to do this, it destroys the process and deletes the files belonging to this worm. However, not only does it remove this worm but it also installs the Microsoft patch that fixes the vulnerability it exploits on affected computers.
Panda Software advises network administrators, IT managers and home users to immediately install the patches released by Microsoft to fix the RPC DCOM vulnerability. These are available at
http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-026.asp where you can also find detailed information about this flaw.
In order to avoid falling victim to attack, Panda Software advises users to update their antivirus solutions immediately. The multinational antivirus manufacturer has already released the updates, which ensure their antivirus solutions detect Nachi.A. Therefore, if your software is not configured to update automatically, you can update it from the company's website at
http://www.pandasoftware.com/Users can also detect this and other malicious code using the free, online antivirus, Panda ActiveScan, which is available on the company's website at
http://www.pandasoftware.comFor more information about W32/Nachi.A and other viruses, visit Panda Software's Virus Encyclopedia at:
http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclopedia/NOTE: The addresses above may not show up on your screen as single lines. This would prevent you from using the links to access the web pages. If this happens, just use the "cut" and "paste" options to join the pieces of the URL.
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As someone who has spent the last week cleaning computer after computer of the Blaster virus, I feel it's in the public interest to post the occasional notification of things such as this that can affect my fellow DUers. If you'd rather I not post these email notifications (I'm on several lists) let me know and I won't post any more here.