Kaspersky: Massive botnet is 'practically indestructible'

[example1013]

Guest said:
If it's infecting the MBR, it should be no problem for SOME XP users to bulletproof their systems.

It's a rather simple process to bulletproof your master boot record (MBR) in windows XP. All it requires a floppy drive, and the ability to boot to it.

What you have to do is copy boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM, and ntldr from your hard drive to the floppy, and open the write protect tab. Then set your machine to boot off the floppy first. Another copy of your floppy can sometimes be used to boot other infected machines for cleaning.

There is no way to get around a floppy's write protection with software, or firmware.

More detailed info on how to actually make the floppy can be found on this page: http://www.spambotsecurity.com/maintenance.php[/quote]

What if Kaspersky told you the botnet put tape over the opening?

 

[Archean]

@Lokalaskurar
We (at work) dump all our old equipment and papers in a separate facility located in the suburbs here. I remember seeing couple of old XT computers with 5.25" floppies sitting in a pile of dust and eating termites in a basement over there

 

[Lokalaskurar]

@Archean
Wow, can't say that I've ever heard of carnivorous XT's before!

 

[Archean]

I don't blame them for it, as the fault lies with the keeper, who simply dumped 'tons' of paper around these machines, so you can guess what can happen then .....

In fact I remember a funny story about it, few years ago, when the guard who is supposed to keep this facility 'safe' was napping some 'dacoits' broke in, tied him up and then stuffed dozens of such old PCs (including these XTs) and furniture etc. in a truck (a 2 ton capacity vehicle). But their luck ran out as soon as left the premises and drove the truck in a roadside tree due to bad road conditions (well plainly put that road had huge 'craters' in it where you could easily loose your sheep) and subsequently had to flee on foot. The long and the short of it, everything was returned to the facility, and now still gathering dust, rust and termites (not in this particular order by the way).

 

[red1776]

We (at work) dump all our old equipment and papers in a separate facility located in the suburbs here.

I'm curious Arch...where is here? (part of the world I mean)

 

[Archean]

That will be something like 8,000 miles from you red

Beside, you've got to forgive my typos in such replies, because I post them from work, hence, that means I may be trying to multitask, which off-course is not an easy thing for men. That is why we need computers

 

[red1776]

That will be something like 8,000 miles from you red

I knew you were going to say that!
...8028 mi to be exact mate (well to Auckland anyway ) :haha:

My wife...(and every other women I know) will tell you that men cannot multi-task period!

 

[Archean]

Well it is 6175 nautical miles

So I correct myself, I was only making a wild guess in the first place anyway.

 

[captaincranky]

Beside, you've got to forgive my typos in such replies, because I post them from work, hence, that means I may be trying to multitask, which off-course is not an easy thing for men.

OK, your "typos" are essentially an entirely different language from that which we speak here.

The wrong word, a homophone, the wrong tense of verb, etc., cannot be called "typos", they are failure to proofread. The saying, "but will it run Crysis", has become an internet "mene"! <<<< (That's a "typo").

My wife...(and every other women I know) will tell you that men cannot multi-task period!

And the average woman cannot drive a car. An Asian woman, even less so.

So, while they're tryin to drive, talk on the cell phone, and change the channel on the radio, all the while touting their self vaunted ability to multi-task, male interests are best served by staying the f*** away from them. People have 2 hands, and one brain, hence they are best at one task at at time.

If a woman gave me too much s*** about how good she was at multi tasking, I'd hand her a circular saw, and an iron. Then tell her to make me a book shelf while she's ironing my clothes.

 

[Benny26]

Red said:
My wife...(and every other women I know) will tell you that men cannot multi-task period!

Sorry to interject here but that's just not true. I for one know that a man can be irritating, sarcastic and obnoxious all at the same time...So that's that argument blown straight out of the water.

Archean said:
Well it is 6175 nautical miles

What?...Here's me thinking all this time you from around Finland or Norway :haha:

 

[captaincranky]

Sorry to interject here but that's just not true. I for one know that a man can be irritating, sarcastic and obnoxious all at the same time...So that's that argument blown straight out of the water.

You forgot, "tyrannical"....

 

[Archean]

@CC
By the way Captain, English is the fourth language I've learned so my grasp over it can't be compared with anyone from your lot.

 

[Guest]

1. A CD-R/RW or DVD-RW can be damaged by a malware-controlled laser in a drive, can't it? If so, there's no way to protect a disk unless it's been physically printed out by expensive equipment (and I'm not sure even that is 100% when a laser is turned up on a printed disc...)

2. USB sticks cannot be physically write-protected, can they?

3. I have a USB floppy drive... however, all of my usb floppies and printers get killed within a few days of being hooked up to infected machines. The noise they make isn't cheerful, it's like the sound of myself chewing gravel. That being said, I have three older computers running XP that have floppy drives, two of which also have ZIP drives in them (which, I believe, *can* be physically write-protected). Haven't used a 720 since I copied all my files over to 3.5" in 1991. I always ended up bending them too much, 3.5"s are nice in that they're a bit tougher (and easier to find new). Unfortunately, my favorite floppies (house brand at RadioShack) aren't being carried in the stores anymore.

4. I've got TDL4 loading ram hooks (according to the diagnostics in Ubuntu running live from boot) even when there's NO HARD DRIVE (only the live disk for media - no usb sticks, no other drives of ANY sort)... so I'm hoping that the bulletproofing method mentioned above might get me far enough to hook a drive up through USB and finally be able to nuke (low-level multipass format) a hard drive and do a fresh install of XP - DBAN is awesome, except when it, like gparted and fdisk and every other formatting utility, suddenly fails to apply any changes whatsoever and actually DO the formatting.

Awesome discussion, glad I found this! For once, something that isn't completely hijacked in my browser!

Venus (veiledvenus on VirusTotal)

 

[mailpup]

USB sticks cannot be physically write-protected, can they?

They can if they have a write protect switch. They're not very common anymore, however.