-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

===========================================================================
              AUSCERT External Security Bulletin Redistribution
                                      
                     ESB-1999.010 -- CIAC Bulletin J-025
                     W97M.Footprint Macro Virus Detected
                              04 February 1999

===========================================================================

The U.S. Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) 
has released the following security bulletin concerning a new word 97 macro
virus.  This virus overwrites the footers on all open documents on an
infected machine.  This virus has been sent in documents to various sites 
throughout the Internet and most antivirus tools are not yet capable of 
detecting it.

- --------------------------BEGIN INCLUDED TEXT--------------------

- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

             __________________________________________________________

                       The U.S. Department of Energy
                   Computer Incident Advisory Capability
                           ___  __ __    _     ___
                          /       |     /_   /
                          \___  __|__  /     \___
             __________________________________________________________

                             INFORMATION BULLETIN

                      W97M.Footprint Macro Virus Detected 

February 2, 1999 19:00 GMT                                        Number J-025
______________________________________________________________________________
PROBLEM:       A new word 97 macro virus has been detected at a DOE site and 
               is known to have been in documents sent to other sites. It is 
               not yet detected by most antivirus tools. 
PLATFORM:      Windows 95, or Windows NT running Microsoft Word 97 (version 
               8). Word 98 on the Macintosh is probably not susceptible as the 
               virus explicitly writes to the C: hard drive which does not 
               exist on the Macintosh. 
DAMAGE:        Overwrites the footers on all open documents. It also 
               overwrites all macros in open documents and open and attached 
               templates with the macro virus code. 
SOLUTION:      Use an updated antivirus product when one is available. Until 
               then, password the normal.dot file, turn on macro virus 
               detection in Word, and take care when opening files containing 
               macros. 
______________________________________________________________________________
VULNERABILITY  Risk of infection is high because this virus has been seen in 
ASSESSMENT:    the wild within the DOE complex. The risk of damage is low, 
               because most users do not have macros in files and would be 
               alerted by Word's macro detector. Also fixing damaged footers 
               in Word documents is a relatively easy task. 
______________________________________________________________________________


The W97M.Footprint Word macro virus has been seen within the DOE complex. This 
macro virus attaches to Word objects in Word 97 in much the same way as 
W97M.Class. Because of this method of infection, this virus will not infect 
older versions of Microsoft Word. When an infected document is opened, the 
virus writes the body of the virus code into two files:

    C:footprint.$$$
    C:footprint.$$1

Finding these two files on a system indicates the system has been infected.

The virus then tests the currently open documents for a custom property:

    Property Name     Value
    -----------------------
    FootNote1         True

If the property exists, the virus knows the file has already been infected. If 
the property does not exist, the virus creates the custom property, overwrites 
the document footer with the document path, deletes any existing macros 
attached as Word objects, and copies the virus macro into the file. The virus 
then deletes all the macros attached as Word objects in all attached document 
templates and copies itself into the templates as well.

Detecting The Virus
===================

Finding the two footprint files in the root directory of the C: drive is 
strong evidence that the virus has infected a system. 

If you open a document and the Word macro virus protection detects a macro in 
the document being opened, disable the macro and then use the File, Properties 
command to see the document properties. Check the Custom tab and if a custom 
property named: FootNote1 exists the document has been infected.

We expect that most antivirus scanners will be updated to detect this virus in 
the near future. 

Protecting A System
===================

To protect a system from this and other Word macro viruses, the normal.dot 
file should be password protected and macro virus protection should be turned 
on. 

Password Protecting The Normal.dot File
- - ---------------------------------------

To password protect the Normal.dot file in Word 97, perform these steps:

1. Start Word.
2. Choose the Tools, Macro, Visual Basic Editor command.
3. In the Project window of the Visual Basic Editor, click on Normal.
4. Choose the Tools, Normal Properties command, Protection tab.
5. Check the Lock Project for Viewing check box and type in a password twice. 
6. Close the dialog box, close the Visual Basic editor.
7. Quit Word.

The next time you start Word, the normal.dot template will be protected. 

WARNING: If you ever have to type in the password to make changes to the 
normal.dot file be aware that the file remains unprotected until you quit Word 
and restart it. 

Turning On Macro Virus Protection
- - ---------------------------------

Some simple macro virus protection is built into Word 97. It does not detect 
specific macro viruses but only informs you if macros exist on a document you 
are trying to open. Macros detected by Macro Virus Protection are not 
necessarily a virus. However, if you are alerted to a macro attached to a 
document you should be extremely wary because most people do not have macros 
attached to their documents. 

To turn on macro virus protection, perform these steps:

1. Start Word.
2. Choose the Tools, Options command, General tab.
3. Check the Macro Virus Protection check box.
4. Close the dialog box.

Whenever you open a document that contains macros, the macro virus protection 
opens a dialog box telling you that there are macros in the document and 
giving you the option to: Open the document with the macros enabled, open the 
document without the macros, or cancel the open operation. You should only 
open a document with macros enabled if you are expecting there to be macros on 
that document and you know what they are supposed to do.

Manual Cleaning of a System
===========================

Until the commercial antivirus scanners are able to detect and clean this 
virus, it can be cleaned by hand using the following procedures. The procedure 
assumes that your copy of Word is not infected with the virus. If your copy of 
Word is infected, it must be cleaned first. The Word program is not actually 
infected with a macro virus, it is the normal.dot file that Word loads at 
startup that is infected.

To clean a copy of Microsoft Word that has been infected with a macro virus, 
perform these steps:

1. Start Word.
2. Choose the Tools, Templates and Add-Ins command.
3. Make a note of all templates that load at startup (normal.dot plus those 
checked in the dialog box.)
4. Quit Word.
5. Find the normal.dot file that Word loads at startup and delete it. It is 
normally in /Program Files/Microsoft Office/Templates.
6. Delete any other templates that you noted in step 3. 
7. Start Word then quit Word to create a new normal.dot file. 
8. Password protect normal.dot as indicated above.
9. Delete the files: C:footprint.$$$ and C:footprint.$$1.

To clean a document infected with a macro virus, perform these steps:

1. Make sure the Normal.dot template is locked.
2. Make sure macro virus protection is turned on.
3. Open the file and disable the macros with the macro virus protection dialog 
box.
4. Choose the File, Properties command, Custom tab.
5. Select the FootNote1 property and press the delete button.
6. Close the File properties dialog box.
7. Save the document with a new name as a Word6/95 document. If you save it as 
a Word 97 document, the virus will be deleted, but the macro detector will 
still alert every time the document is opened. 
8. Open the document again and save it as a word 97 document if you want to 
change it back to the current format.

If after cleaning Word and your documents the files,

    C:footprint.$$$
    C:footprint.$$1

reappear, then you have missed an infected file somewhere and your system is 
still infected. You must go back and clean Word and the documents again. Most 
likely you missed an attached template that was set to load when Word starts. 



CIAC, the Computer Incident Advisory Capability, is the computer
security incident response team for the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) and the emergency backup response team for the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). CIAC is located at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in Livermore, California. CIAC is also a founding
member of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a
global organization established to foster cooperation and coordination
among computer security teams worldwide.

CIAC services are available to DOE, DOE contractors, and the NIH. CIAC
can be contacted at:
    Voice:    +1 925-422-8193
    FAX:      +1 925-423-8002
    STU-III:  +1 925-423-2604
    E-mail:   ciac@llnl.gov

For emergencies and off-hour assistance, DOE, DOE contractor sites,
and the NIH may contact CIAC 24-hours a day. During off hours (5PM -
8AM PST), call the CIAC voice number 925-422-8193 and leave a message,
or call 800-759-7243 (800-SKY-PAGE) to send a Sky Page. CIAC has two
Sky Page PIN numbers, the primary PIN number, 8550070, is for the CIAC
duty person, and the secondary PIN number, 8550074 is for the CIAC
Project Leader.

Previous CIAC notices, anti-virus software, and other information are
available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive.

   World Wide Web:      http://www.ciac.org/
                        (or http://ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine)
   Anonymous FTP:       ftp.ciac.org
                        (or ciac.llnl.gov -- they're the same machine)
   Modem access:        +1 (925) 423-4753 (28.8K baud)
                        +1 (925) 423-3331 (28.8K baud)

CIAC has several self-subscribing mailing lists for electronic
publications:
1. CIAC-BULLETIN for Advisories, highest priority - time critical
   information and Bulletins, important computer security information;
2. SPI-ANNOUNCE for official news about Security Profile Inspector
   (SPI) software updates, new features, distribution and
   availability;
3. SPI-NOTES, for discussion of problems and solutions regarding the
   use of SPI products.

Our mailing lists are managed by a public domain software package
called Majordomo, which ignores E-mail header subject lines. To
subscribe (add yourself) to one of our mailing lists, send the
following request as the E-mail message body, substituting
ciac-bulletin, spi-announce OR spi-notes for list-name:

E-mail to       ciac-listproc@llnl.gov or majordomo@rumpole.llnl.gov:
        subscribe list-name 
  e.g., subscribe ciac-bulletin 

You will receive an acknowledgment email immediately with a confirmation
that you will need to mail back to the addresses above, as per the
instructions in the email.  This is a partial protection to make sure
you are really the one who asked to be signed up for the list in question.

If you include the word 'help' in the body of an email to the above address,
it will also send back an information file on how to subscribe/unsubscribe,
get past issues of CIAC bulletins via email, etc.

PLEASE NOTE: Many users outside of the DOE, ESnet, and NIH computing
communities receive CIAC bulletins.  If you are not part of these
communities, please contact your agency's response team to report
incidents. Your agency's team will coordinate with CIAC. The Forum of
Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a world-wide
organization. A list of FIRST member organizations and their
constituencies can be obtained via WWW at http://www.first.org/.

This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an
agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States
Government nor the University of California nor any of their
employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any
legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or
usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process
disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately
owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial products,
process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or
otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement,
recommendation or favoring by the United States Government or the
University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed
herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States
Government or the University of California, and shall not be used for
advertising or product endorsement purposes.

LAST 10 CIAC BULLETINS ISSUED (Previous bulletins available from CIAC)

J-015: HP SharedX Denial-of-Service Vulnerability
J-016: Cisco IOS DFS Access List Leakage Vulnerabilities
J-017: HP-UX vacation Security Vulnerability
J-018: HTML Viruses
J-019: Intelligent Peripherals Create Security Risk 
J-020: SGI IRIX fcagent daemon Vulnerability
J-021: Sun Solaris Vulnerabilities ( dtmail, passwd )
J-022: HP-UX Vulnerabilities ( snmp, sendmail, remote network command )
J-023: Cisco IOS Syslog Denial-of-Service Vulnerability
J-024: Windows NT Remote Explorer




- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 4.0 Business Edition

iQCVAwUBNriHCLnzJzdsy3QZAQFLYwP/fbz1To/p8x2SMYJe+5cZgm9yLhcfmUWi
OmIXbV8UfEIbFYX9UdSlxBOChyxqsjCssRPmfqg0ZpZhFnkvyFAHN8A5l76JUVeK
Upj6Hr4Q/WMLx+D+hGs7ADb9/qMGmAlyDb99q2Il6MtLw23oZ5V9ZvnWVE1v6VS/
3c2Kvi5KMJU=
=0LiG
- -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
- --------------------------END INCLUDED TEXT----------------------

===========================================================================

This security bulletin is provided as a service to AusCERT's members.
As AusCERT did not write the document quoted above, AusCERT has
had no control over its content.  The decision to use any or all
of this information is the responsibility of each user or organisation,
and should be done so in accordance with site policies and procedures.

If you have any questions or need further information, please contact 
Microsoft Corporation directly.

Previous advisories and external security bulletins can be retrieved from:

	http://www.auscert.org.au/Information/advisories.html

If you believe that your system has been compromised, contact AusCERT or
your representative in FIRST (Forum of Incident Response and Security
Teams).

Internet Email: auscert@auscert.org.au
Facsimile:	(07) 3365 7031
Telephone:	(07) 3365 4417 (International: +61 7 3365 4417)
		AusCERT personnel answer during Queensland business hours
		which are GMT+10:00 (AEST).
		On call after hours for emergencies.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3i
Charset: noconv
Comment: ftp://ftp.auscert.org.au/pub/auscert/AUSCERT_PGP.key

iQCVAwUBNr7ELyh9+71yA2DNAQGmjgP+OI5PH5eaeiGzBzCEslr0BPmqc16TbkjH
9/Z6XBMV+YCraFHJz+NEhFwysJqRqMv4/XZekKuCUQvKxVYpAvIdvNqCsSLkkNrq
hHGR50gpObZTIT9pXLYorfCT6BweutHiPz7nTJY3+zTv1GRr4GOFJWx2G5tfFwkY
hC3KfCtvuyw=
=5K1D
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----