From: David Kaye on
"David H. Lipman" <DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> wrote:

>I have never heard of the "Ramnit" trojan. But, there are 100's of thousands
> out there
>and it isn't a major family/player.

I wouldn't call it a trojan at this point because I don't know that it was
masquerading as anything else. It never showed a user interface. The
symptoms were hosed Internet connections, redirects, and excessive HD access.

It is either a virus or a worm. I can't figure out when it was originally
downloaded because some executables took on the date/time the OS was
originally installed, but I suspect it was concurrent with a Limewire or a
torrent connection of some kind, judging by the log files.

From: David Kaye on
"Ant" <not(a)home.today> wrote:

>Symantec wrote something about it in Jan this year. Apparently, it's a
>worm that spreads through removable drives and infects executables (so
>it's also a virus). Copies itself to the recycle bin and creates
>autorun.inf files on all drives.

That's what they said in January, but this didn't act that way. I tested with
a stick and it didn't even see it. It also appears to be looking for exe and
dll files and attaches itself to them. MSSE apparently was able to remove the
attachments, but Avast couldn't. Those were the only two anti-malware
programs that even saw this.

>Yes, if a sample was available I could probably discover exactly what
>it did (given a little time). Anyway, since so many infected files
>were reported in an earlier post it's just as well he's doing a wipe
>and reinstall.

Unfortunately that's where I'm going to have to go, or at least reinstall the
OS.

From: David H. Lipman on
From: "David Kaye" <sfdavidkaye2(a)yahoo.com>

| "FromTheRafters" <erratic(a)nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

>>It's a shame he couldn't provide you with a sample. His description of
>>symptoms doesn't exactly match up with what this malware is/does. This
>>could be new malware worm dropping ramnit.a as it finds new systems.

| What kind of sample? A sample of the malware? I'm loathe to provide that; I
| don't want to be responsible for infecting any computers. I've already given
| some filenames and directories.

| But regardless of what names I provide, there is still something being
| launched that I'm unaware of that is rebuilding the files I see. As
| previously stated, I've removed the HD, scanned it for rootkits and malware
| and reinstalled it and the stuff comes back.

| Well, folks, thanks anyway. I'm just going to reinstall Windows, something I
| seldom have to do. It's got me beat and I can't spend any more time on this
| issue. I'm backed up in work again.


Providing a sample of malware to http://www.uploadmalware.com/ will *NOT* cause more
computers to be infected.
On the contrary, people who have access to the files are experienced at handling malware.
The culmination of all submissions get distributed to the listed anti malware companies.

Therefore, sample submission to UploadMalware leads to greater recognition of submitted
samples.

Vendor list:
http://www.uploadmalware.com/vendors.php


--
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp


From: russg on
snip stuff about experienced posters only.

I come here to learn, and there are some experts here. The OP
considers himself an expert and only wants
talk to experts. I would say his final approach of wiping and re-
installing the OS (which he didn't mention),
but first trying to save .docs, mp3 and other important files, is the
only solution. I learned that RAMNIT.A
is a PE infector, infects other known files, like IE. Here's some
info at sophos.com:

http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32patchedi.html?_log_from=rss

The OP knows the name of the malware, so he must have submitted a
sample somewhere.
From: David H. Lipman on
From: "russg" <russgilb(a)sbcglobal.net>

| snip stuff about experienced posters only.

| I come here to learn, and there are some experts here. The OP
| considers himself an expert and only wants
| talk to experts. I would say his final approach of wiping and re-
| installing the OS (which he didn't mention),
| but first trying to save .docs, mp3 and other important files, is the
| only solution. I learned that RAMNIT.A
| is a PE infector, infects other known files, like IE. Here's some
| info at sophos.com:

| http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32patchedi.html?_log_from=
| rss

| The OP knows the name of the malware, so he must have submitted a
| sample somewhere.

From Dave's first post...
"Does anybody have EXPERIENCE with Win32/RAMNIT.A ? I'm having a devil of a
time removing it. The only tool the detects it consistently is MS Security
Essentials, and MSSE keeps counting it and "disinfecting" it."

He didn't submit a sample somewhere, MSE scanned the system, detected it
(Win32/RAMNIT.A ), but MSE failed to full remove and clean the system of it. Dave also
indicated he tried Avast to no avail.

--
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp