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CERT Advisory CA-99-04-Melissa-Macro-Virus



   Original issue date: Saturday March 27 1999

   Last Revised: Saturday March 27, 1999



Systems Affected



     * Machines with Microsoft Word 97 or Word 2000

     * Any mail handling system could experience performance problems or

       a denial of service as a result of the propagation of this macro

       virus.



Overview



   At approximately 2:00 PM GMT-5 on Friday March 26 1999 we began

   receiving reports of a Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000 macro virus

   which is propagating via email attachments. The number and variety of

   reports we have received indicate that this is a widespread attack

   affecting a variety of sites.



   Our analysis of this macro virus indicates that human action (in the

   form of a user opening an infected Word document) is required for this

   virus to propagate. It is possible that under some mailer

   configurations, a user might automatically open an infected document

   received in the form of an email attachment. This macro virus is not

   known to exploit any new vulnerabilities. While the primary transport

   mechanism of this virus is via email, any way of transferring files

   can also propagate the virus.



   Anti-virus software vendors have called this macro virus the Melissa

   macro or W97M_Melissa virus.



I. Description



   The Melissa macro virus propagates in the form of an email message

   containing an infected Word document as an attachment. The transport

   message has most frequently been reported to contain the following

   Subject header



      Subject: Important Message From 



   Where  is the full name of the user sending the message.



   The body of the message is a multipart MIME message containing two

   sections. The first section of the message (Content-Type: text/plain)

   contains the following text.



      Here is that document you asked for ... don't show anyone else ;-)



   The next section (Content-Type: application/msword) was initially

   reported to be a document called "list.doc". This document contains

   references to pornographic web sites. As this macro virus spreads we

   are likely to see documents with other names. In fact, under certain

   conditions the virus may generate attachments with documents created

   by the victim.



   When a user opens an infected .doc file with Microsoft Word97 or

   Word2000, the macro virus is immediately executed if macros are

   enabled.



   Upon execution, the virus first lowers the macro security settings to

   permit all macros to run when documents are opened in the future.

   Therefore, the user will not be notified when the virus is executed in

   the future.



   The macro then checks to see if the registry key



   "HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\Melissa?"



   has a value of "... by Kwyjibo". If that registry key does not exist

   or does not have a value of "... by Kwyjibo", the virus proceeds to

   propagate itself by sending an email message in the format described

   above to the first 50 entries in every MAPI address book readable by

   the user executing the macro. Keep in mind that if any of these email

   addresses are mailing lists, the message will be delivered to everyone

   on the mailing lists. In order to successfully propagate, the affected

   machine must have Microsoft Outlook installed; however, Outlook does

   not need to be the mailer used to read the message.



   Next, the macro virus sets the value of the registry key to "... by

   Kwyjibo". Setting this registry key causes the virus to only propagate

   once per session. If the registry key does not persist through

   sessions, the virus will propagate as described above once per every

   session when a user opens an infected document. If the registry key

   persists through sessions, the virus will no longer attempt to

   propagate even if the affected user opens an infected document.



   The macro then infects the Normal.dot template file. By default, all

   Word documents utilize the Normal.dot template; thus, any newly

   created Word document will be infected. Because unpatched versions of

   Word97 may trust macros in templates the virus may execute without

   warning. For more information please see:



       http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-002.asp



   Finally, if the minute of the hour matches the day of the month at

   this point, the macro inserts into the current document the message

   "Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for

   using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here."



   Note that if you open an infected document with macros disabled and

   look at the list of macros in this document, neither Word97 nor

   Word2000 list the macro. The code is actually VBA (Visual Basic for

   Applications) code associated with the "document.open" method. You can

   see the code by going into the Visual Basic editor.



   If you receive one of these messages, keep in mind that the message

   came from someone who is affected by this virus and they are not

   necessarily targeting you. We encourage you to contact any users from

   which you have received such a message. Also, we are interested in

   understanding the scope of this activity; therefore, we would

   appreciate if you would report any instance of this activity to us

   according to our Incident Reporting Guidelines document available at:



       http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/incident_reporting.html



II. Impact



     * Users who open an infected document in Word97 or Word2000 with

       macros enabled will infect the Normal.dot template causing any

       documents referencing this template to be infected with this macro

       virus. If the infected document is opened by another user, the

       document, including the macro virus, will propagate. Note that

       this could cause the user's document to be propagated instead of

       the original document, and thereby leak sensitive information.



     * Indirectly, this virus could cause a denial of service on mail

       servers. Many large sites have reported performance problems with

       their mail servers as a result of the propagation of this virus.



III. Solutions



     * Block messages with the signature of this virus at your mail transfer

       agents.



       With Sendmail



       Nick Christenson of sendmail.com provided information about

       configuring sendmail to filter out messages that may contain the

       Melissa virus. This information is available from the follow URL:

       http://ftp.cert.org/pub/cert_advisories/Patches/CA-99-04-sendmail-m

       elissa-filter.txt



     * Utilize virus scanners



       Most virus scanning tools will detect and clean macro viruses. In

       order to detect and clean current viruses you must keep your

       scanning tools up to date with the latest definition files.



          + McAfee / Network Associates



            http://vil.mcafee.com/vil/vm10120.asp

            http://www.avertlabs.com/public/datafiles/valerts/vinfo/melissa.asp



          + Symantec



            http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/mailissa.html



          + Trend Micro



            http://housecall.antivirus.com/smex_housecall/technotes.html



     * Encourage users at your site to disable macros in Microsoft Word



       Notify all of your users of the problem and encourage them to

       disable macros in Word. You may also wish to encourage users to

       disable macros in any product that contains a macro language as

       this sort of problem is not limited to Microsoft Word.



       In Word97 you can disable automatic macro execution (click

       Tools/Options/General then turn on the 'Macro virus protection'

       checkbox). In Word2000 macro execution is controlled by a security

       level variable similar to Internet Explorer (click on

       Tools/Macro/Security and choose High, Medium, or Low). In that

       case, 'High' silently ignores the VBA code, Medium prompts in the

       way Word97 does to let you enable or disable the VBA code, and

       'Low' just runs it.



       Word2000 supports Authenticode on the VB code. In the 'High'

       setting you can specify sites that you trust and code from those

       sites will run.



     * General protection from Word Macro Viruses



       For information about macro viruses in general, we encourage you

       to review the document "Free Macro AntiVirus Techniques" by Chengi

       Jimmy Kuo which is available at.



          http://www.nai.com/services/support/vr/free.asp



Acknowledgements



   We would like to thank Jimmy Kuo of Network Associates, Eric Allman

   and Nick Christenson of sendmail.com, Dan Schrader of Trend Micro, and

   Jason Garms and Karan Khanna of Microsoft for providing information

   used in this advisory.



   Additionally we would like to thank the many sites who reported this

   activity.

   ______________________________________________________________________



   This document is available from:

   http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-99-04-Melissa-Macro-Virus.html.

   ______________________________________________________________________



CERT/CC Contact Information



   Email: cert@cert.org

          Phone: +1 412-268-7090 (24-hour hotline)

          Fax: +1 412-268-6989

          Postal address:

          CERT Coordination Center

          Software Engineering Institute

          Carnegie Mellon University

          Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890

          U.S.A.



   CERT personnel answer the hotline 08:00-20:00 EST(GMT-5) / EDT(GMT-4)

   Monday through Friday; they are on call for emergencies during other

   hours, on U.S. holidays, and on weekends.



Using encryption



   We strongly urge you to encrypt sensitive information sent by email.

   Our public PGP key is available from http://www.cert.org/CERT_PGP.key.

   If you prefer to use DES, please call the CERT hotline for more

   information.



Getting security information



   CERT publications and other security information are available from

   our web site http://www.cert.org/.



   To be added to our mailing list for advisories and bulletins, send

   email to cert-advisory-request@cert.org and include SUBSCRIBE

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   Copyright 1999 Carnegie Mellon University.

   Conditions for use, disclaimers, and sponsorship information can be

   found in http://www.cert.org/legal_stuff.html.



   * "CERT" and "CERT Coordination Center" are registered in the U.S.

   Patent and Trademark Office

   ______________________________________________________________________



   NO WARRANTY

   Any material furnished by Carnegie Mellon University and the Software

   Engineering Institute is furnished on an "as is" basis. Carnegie

   Mellon University makes no warranties of any kind, either expressed or

   implied as to any matter including, but not limited to, warranty of

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   patent, trademark, or copyright infringement.

   ______________________________________________________________________



Revision History



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