Summary

A new email worm Kipis.A was found on 22th of December 2004. The worm spreads in emails that have a subject "Love", "I Love You", or "Happy New Year".

Additional Details

When run the worm creates a mutex named "KiPiShx018AxR" to avoid running more than once simultaneously.

The worm copies itself as:

%WinDir%\regedit.com
where %WinDir% is Windows folder, for example 'C:\Windows\' on a default installation of Windows XP. In effect, running "regedit" runs a copy of the worm instead of regedit.exe.

It also creates a directory

%WinDir%\security
and copies itself in that directory as "svchost.exe". This path is added to system.ini file using the Windows API call WritePrivateProfileStringA from the Kernel32.dll. The entry will look like this:

[boot] Shell=Explorer.exe "%WinDir%\security\svchost.exe"
As win.ini is not supported by Windows NT, 2000 and XP, on these operating system the changes will be added to the Registry. As as result Windows will start the worm on every time it boots.

The worm also creates a file

%WinSysDir%\Jpg.bmp
where %WinSysDir% is Windows System folder, for example 'C:\Windows\System32' on a default installation of Windows XP.

The file Jpg.bmp contains the following string

BMD -:+:- zzzzzzzzzzz
Then the worm tries to open this file with mspaint.exe as a decoy. This file crashes mspaint.exe.

Email spreading

Kipis.A tries to locate the e-mail addresses from the Windows address book file. Additionally, it collects addresses from files with certain extensions on all hard disks and RAM drives from C: to Z. Files with the following extensions will be checked:

.tbb .dbx .doc .htm .adb .txt
The worm has its own SMTP engine which it uses to send infected emails. The messages sent by the worm will have one of the following subjects:

I Love You Happy New Year Love
The worm uses the following body text in the message:

Hello! baby :-)
It can also use the following faked error message in the body:

Server cannot send message.
_____________________________________________ On all questions address in a support service
The worm attaches itself to an infected message using one of the following names:

your present.scr foto_03.scr myfoto_04.scr trax_06.scr dom2.scr foto_05.scr
P2P spreading

The worm spreads itself in P2P networks. When it locates a shared folder, it copies itself there with one of the following names:

Nude Britney Spears.scr Nude Pic_07.scr Virtual Girl 2.01.com KAV Pro 5.xx keygen.com DrWeb 4.32 keygen.com WinXP Sp2 key.com
Payload

Kipis.A creates a thread that terminates security related software.

The worm also has a backdoor listening on port 1029. With this backdoor, additional programs can be uploaded and executed.

Detection

F-Secure Anti-Virus detects Kipis.A worm with the following update:

[FSAV_Database_Version]
Version=2004-12-22_02

Technical Details: Jarkko Turkulainen, December 22th, 2004;