Jack, the new variants are not so obvious to detect. They contain hidden
processes or rootkits. Sooner or later they will start to use ADS (alternate
data stream) points to hide.
Anyone can track down anything with a registry snapshot. Do a registry
snapshot and then install your "spyware" and then you will see every key.
But what good is that if you have to clean more than one computer.
We are all computer people - fixing one computer is easy but could take 4
hours - not very helpful on a mass scale. We pay for point and click, why
shouldn't we get it? ;)
-----Original Message-----
From: full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com
[mailto:full-disclosure-admin@lists.netsys.com] On Behalf Of JacK
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2004 11:56 AM
To: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com
Subject: Re: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Cool Web Search
I don't know if you fully understand HiJackThis or maybe I was just
unclear.
HiJackThis wasn't used by me to get rid of CWS as, for example, running
Adaware gets rid of tracking cookies and some installed spyware progs. It
was used by me to list various entries in registry which, when lumped
together like that, show off CWS quite easily. Once they are there,
removing
them and the progs started by some of them is easy.
That is all you have to do. Don't expect HiJackThis to magically get rid
of
it all at the flick of a button. You DO have to have a small amount of
registry knowledge in order to ID which entries are seriously bull and
which
are honest BHOs etc. I am not a registry "expert" but claim a small amount
of registry knowledge so even to ME it was obvious what was what.
It 's obvious you did not get the variants I am speaking about and you are
no Registry "expert" ;)
For those variants :
HijackThis let you see the entry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows\AppIn
it_DLLs
(and in most case with no value) BUT when you delete it and click refresh,
it comes immediately back for the trojan is still running.
If you kill the associated running random name dll (for instance
c:\windows\system32\logb.dll) it comes back at next reboot and adds the
value AppInit_DLLs again in the registry.
To get rid of it, you have to rename the key
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows in Windows2 ,
then delete the entry AppInit_DLLs which seems not having any value. When
done, rename the key with its regular name and AppInit_DLLs will not appear
anymore when refreshing ; only when it's done you will be able to kill and
delete the random name.dll for good which is the Backdoor.Agent.ba used to
install this tricky variant of CoolWebSearch.
That's why I said HijackThis has its limits : suppressing the entries its
log gives directly from the registry does not help.
That's just an exemple, the are other variants which add in the registry the
entry AppInit_Dlls somewhere else with the same result and the same way to
get rid of it.
Hoping it's clearer now, so sorry for my poor English.
Regards,
--
http://www.optimix.be.tf /MVP WindowsXP/ http://websecurite.org
http://www.msmvps.com/XPditif/
http://experts.microsoft.fr/longhorn4u/
*Helping you void your warranty since 2000*
@(*0*)@ JacK
_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
