Network News
Latest news and updates from AustNet
Virus Alert
An old worm (wkbot) has been re-released into the wild with currently a high payload. The majority of people receive this virus from kazaa/imesh/IRC. As a means to help others infected with the ident problem Austnet has ignored the idents of affected users.
The things to look out for are your ident being set to LL????? (random numbers replace the question marks) or a file called cmd32.exe or system32.exe. If you or a friend has found this then might be a good idea to take a visit into #ava for some assistance. As yet there is no fixfile for this virus and the online scanners are struggling to remove it (although they do detect it)
This virus has many malicious functions, some of these include;
Opens two randomly selected TCP and UDP ports to connect to the hacker.
Listens for the commands from the hacker using its own IRC channel.
The commands allow the hacker to perform any of the following actions:
Upgrade the worm
Steal the system/network information and send it to the hacker
Download and execute files
Perform Denial of Service (DoS) attacks against the hacker's targets
Send the worm to other IRC users
More information on this virus can be obtained from #ava or from Symantec
The things to look out for are your ident being set to LL????? (random numbers replace the question marks) or a file called cmd32.exe or system32.exe. If you or a friend has found this then might be a good idea to take a visit into #ava for some assistance. As yet there is no fixfile for this virus and the online scanners are struggling to remove it (although they do detect it)
This virus has many malicious functions, some of these include;
Opens two randomly selected TCP and UDP ports to connect to the hacker.
Listens for the commands from the hacker using its own IRC channel.
The commands allow the hacker to perform any of the following actions:
Upgrade the worm
Steal the system/network information and send it to the hacker
Download and execute files
Perform Denial of Service (DoS) attacks against the hacker's targets
Send the worm to other IRC users
More information on this virus can be obtained from #ava or from Symantec
ASD Raises
Today Ezekiel has been raised to level 200 ASD. This means he can now help with password retrievals, help with stolen nicknames and deal with channel suspensions. Congratulations to ezekiel, who is an asset to the Austnet Services Department!
Live Coverage of CNN and ABC News
With much demand for the latest news in these troubled times, a new channel has been set up - #newsroom, which uses an eggdrop script to run live updates from the CNN and ABC news rooms. The script updates every 3 minutes so receives the LATEST news on whats going on in the world.
Change of name for digital.* server
In line with Digital's sponsors company restructuring, the server is now hosted by Infinite Networks. For this reason, the server has now changed names to infinite* and can be connected to on infinite.tx.us.austnet.org.
Scumshine meet
On Friday the 21st March, around 50 people from #Scumshine and ScumShine.com showed their feelings by walking to the state library in protest against the war. Afterwards, all Scumshiners went to Metro Nightclub and enjoyed a night out. We thank all the people for turning up and thank the lovely people who organized the event.
Buffer overflows in IRC-II based clients
If you are using an IRC-II based client, then you should be aware of the latest reported security threat. A post on Security focus has listed few vulnerabilities, which could be exploited if a user connects to a malicious server. However, only users with the correct authority, such as server administrators can only make use of these bugs. Regular users are unable to exploit these bugs.
In order to avoid being compromised users should avoid connecting to un-trusted servers and not IRC over insecure network links. Author of the post, Timo Sirainen said:
"After seeing the BitchX "DoS" problem mentioned the n'th time already, I decided to finally audit ircII based clients to show some worse problems they have. I had been pretty sure for years that malicious servers can exploit them in multiple ways, and I think many others have known it as well. EPIC and ircII authors have been working to fix these, but looks like their job isn't yet finished." Timo Sirainen's entire article can be seen HERE.
In order to avoid being compromised users should avoid connecting to un-trusted servers and not IRC over insecure network links. Author of the post, Timo Sirainen said:
"After seeing the BitchX "DoS" problem mentioned the n'th time already, I decided to finally audit ircII based clients to show some worse problems they have. I had been pretty sure for years that malicious servers can exploit them in multiple ways, and I think many others have known it as well. EPIC and ircII authors have been working to fix these, but looks like their job isn't yet finished." Timo Sirainen's entire article can be seen HERE.
AustNet reaches 60th place on Orca
Austnet's project-orca.net team is now ranked 60th with more than 9 millions keys and only 14 members. This is an increase of 10 places in just one week. If you would like to become part of this effort, join the team today!
Microsoft issues security alert
A new security alert highlights a critical security bug in all Windows® products. This exploit could be used to run malicious scripts. Affected products are Windows 98, 98SE, ME, NT 4, NT 4 Server edition, 2000 and XP. All users are urged to download the latest security updates available HERE.
Read the alert HERE.
The attacker would first have to send you an e-mail message or entice you into visiting a malicious Web site. AustNet would like to take this opportunity to remind all users to not go to any links which are sent to you on entry or parting of channels, or in conversations with strangers. Prevention can often be better than the cure.
Read the alert HERE.
The attacker would first have to send you an e-mail message or entice you into visiting a malicious Web site. AustNet would like to take this opportunity to remind all users to not go to any links which are sent to you on entry or parting of channels, or in conversations with strangers. Prevention can often be better than the cure.
New Public Relations Discussion Mailing List
AustNet today launched a new mailing list for discussion related to Public Relations. Anyone with ideas on raising the profile of AustNet in a positive way, or who would like to give input, can join the list by sending email to [email protected].
AustNet reaches 70th on project-orca.net
Some time in the past few days AustNet achieved a rank of 70 with 7,394,860 keys on project-orca. For those of you that aren't aware, Project Orca is the followup to Project Dolphin, a project whose sole purpose is to count keystrokes of its participants. More...
15th March, 2003
15th March, 2003