F-Secure Virus Descriptions : LoveLetter.G

NAME:

LoveLetter.G

Information about the original VBS/LoveLetter.A is available at: http://www.F-Secure.com/v-descs/love.shtml

VBS/LoveLetter.G is similar to the original VBS/LoveLetter.A virus.

This variant sends a message that seems to originate from Symantec's support. This is not true. The message looks like the following:

    Subject:    Virus ALERT!!!
    From:       support@symantec.com
    Body:       Dear Symantec customer,

                Symantec's AntiVirus Research Center began receiving
                reports regarding VBS.LoveLetter.A virus early morning on
                May 4, 2000 GMT.
                This worm appears to originate from the Asia Pacific
                region. Distribution of the virus is widespread and
                hundreds of thousands of machines are reported infected.
                The VBS.LoveLetter.A is an Internet worm that uses
                Microsoft Outlook to e-mail itself as an attachment.
                The subject line of the e-mail reads ILOVEYOU, with the
                attachment titled LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.VBS. Once the
                attachment is opened, the virus replicates and sends an
                e-mail to all e-mail addresses listed in the address book.
                The virus also spreads itself via Internet relay chat and
                infects files on local and remote drives including files
                with extensions vbs, vbe, js, sje, css, wsh, sct, hta, jpg,
                jpeg, mp3, mp2.
                Users should exercise caution when opening e-mails with
                this subject line, even if the e-mail is from someone they
                know, as that is how the virus is spread.
                Symantec Corp. today announced availability of the virus
                definition to detect, repair and protect users against the
                VBS.LoveLetter.A virus.
                This definition is available now via Symantec's LiveUpdate
                and can also be downloaded from the following web sites:
                http://www.symantecstore.com/AF74211/promo/loveletter
                http://www.digitalriver.com/symantec

                Also as a quick solution Symantec Corp. offers Visual Basic
                Script to protect your PC against this worm. (See
                attached.)

                Note! When executed, this script will protect Your PC from
                being INFECTED by VBS.LoveLetter.A virus.

                To cure already infected PC's download Norton Antivirus
                Updates mentioned above.

                Symantec Corporation - a world leader in internet security technology.

    Attachment: protect.vbs

This variant changes the Internet Explorer start page to point to an adult site. The default search page is set to point to a hacker site.

The virus creates a new file with the same name for the files with the following extensions: ".js", ".jse", ".css", ".wsh", ".sct", ".hta", ".com" and ".bat", but using the extension ".vbs". The original file will be deleted. Since all ".com" files have been removed, the system cannot be restarted.

This variant does not attempt to download the "WIN-BUGSFIX.exe".

[Analysis: Katrin Tocheva, Mikko Hypponen, Alexey Podrezov and Sami Rautiainen, F-Secure]