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2.6 Harvesting e-mail addresses
Many today’s mass-mailing worms use e-mail harvesting to collect e-mail
addresses and spread to as many computers as they can. To collect e-mail
addresses, these worms open and search local files such: *.asp; *.htm; *.mbx;
*.eml and many others. Once again, some legitimate commercial programs, like
“SharkMailHunt” and “SharkGen E-mail Generator” [9], can carry this
functionality.
The “SharkMailHunt” can harvest e-mail addresses from:
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Internet
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Network
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Local hard disk
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Removable Devices and CD
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Extract most file formats.
The “SharkGen E-mail Generator” can generate thousands of e-mail addresses
to spa.. - sorry, to advertise your company through e-mail.
So, another very popular functionality of the current mass-mailing worms such as
e-mail harvesting, can be “outsourced” to external and legitimate programs.
2.7 Retro Viruses – changing the rules of the game.
Here we will discuss the retro viruses. The original definition: retro viruses are the
viruses that attack security programs [b1]. In this section, I will try to explore this
subject from slightly different point of view – through the software misuse. The
results may surprise you, as they surprise me when I explored this subject.
The idea to attack antivirus programs is not new and dated back many years
ago. Through all these years, the “name of the game” did not change too much:
the antivirus program – a “cat” tries to catch the malware – a “mouse”. Is it
possible for malware to become a “dog” and catch the “cat” (antivirus and other
security software)? Let’s see…
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