Oops, the rush has already begun

[Urban Ranger]

Windows Vista tool targeted by virus writers

Virus writers have published what are thought to be the first examples of malicious code targeting an expected feature of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, around a week after the first beta of the next-generation operating system was released.

The proof-of-concept viruses, along with detailed explanations of how they work, were included in a magazine that was published on the Web over the last week. The viruses' only action is to infect other shell scripts on the host's operating system. They would cause little harm in the wild, but would be relatively easy to modify using the information from the article, said Hyppönen in a blog posting on Thursday.

They surely aren't wasting any time.

[Ecthy]

The first virus will be out before the system it targets.

[alva]

They surely aren't wasting any time.

Hmm, someone spending hours/days to write a nonsical program to "destroy" another program that isn't even out....
Sounds like wasting time to me.

[snoopy369]

If they're proof-of-concept viruses, odds are they were written to SHOW MS about a serious security hole and hope it gets fixed

[rah]

Yes, I'm sure they were written and published to help MS.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ecthy
The first virus will be out before the system it targets.

It will undoubtedly be better supported as well.

[rah]

Originally posted by Sikander

It will undoubtedly be better supported as well.

[Asher]

The "virus" is a malicious shell script...

...

I could write a malicious BASH shell script in all of a second, too.

Non-news...FUD from the usual suspects.

Is this "rush" you allude to similarly related to the "domino effect" of Linux use on the desktop you mentioned 3-4 years ago?

[Asher]

Prepare yourself for the sourcecode of one of the viruses!

This is the verbatim text of one of the five viruses:

    $name_array=get-childitem *.msh
    foreach ($name in $name_array)
    {
    if ($name.Length -eq 249)
    $my_file=$name.Name
    }
    }

    foreach ($victim in $name_array)
    {
    if ($name.Length -ne 249)
    {
    copy-item $my_file $name.Name
    }
    }

All it does is find every .msh file and replace its contents with itself. That's it. You could do it with a .CMD file in any version of Windows (and of course in any other scripting language).

The other scripts get a bit more complicated (insert at a random spot in the file, etc) but that's basically it. There's no new vulnerability exposed by Monad.

My mind is blown. Some twit writes a shell script to modify files (which is absolutely the desired behavior of shell scripts), says it's a virus because it can even delete files (not unlike a bash script using rm -rf). If you have access t othe machine's command-line with Administrator privledges you can use the shell script to cause damage on a system!

Holy ****, I want to smack people.

[Datajack Franit]

Translation for pc-asses

[Asher]

"Hackers" have found a way to use a script to modify files, which was actually the purpose of those scripts. The same kind of scripts can be used on MacOS X and Linux and the Unixes.

It requires the user have command-line access to a machine with Administrator privledges to run.

It's like running an .EXE as an Administrator that's designed to just delete your files, or in Linux running a binary as root to do the same...or a shell script as root to do the same.

This isn't a virus at all. It's a lame attempt at publicity for some anti-social geek that's exploiting the eagerness of lame-brained opensource zealots to report "bad news" about MS. These people lack the capability for rational thought, which is why we get threads like this trying to scare people.

[Datajack Franit]

Why can't they just **** at scat porn like normal teenagers

[joncha]

I don't think that's a normal teenager's porn of choice...