Summary

Needy.E is a Java applet based trojan that changes the Internet Explorer start page changes search settings to ones contained in the trojan and downloads a trojan downloader. Needy activates when user views a web page or HTML E-mail that contains reference to the trojan file.

Disinfection

Removal Instructions

http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/virusproblem/howtoclean/removetrojan.shtml

Additional Details

The Needy.E is activated when a web site containing the trojan is loaded with unpacthed Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. When the JAR file containing the trojan is executed it uses Microsoft Internet Explorer VerifierBug vulnerability to get full privileges by escaping the Java security, and execute its code.

When executed the trojan modifies the Internet Explorer start page to point to the site where the trojan is downloaded from, and changes search settings to point to pornographic services.

In addition to changing the Internet Explorer settings the trojan downloads trojan downloader win32.barlf and executes it.

Detection

Detection in F-Secure Anti-Virus was published on March 30th, 2004 in update:

[FSAV_Database_Version]
Version=2004-03-30_02

Write-up: Jarno Niemela, March 30th, 2004;