Home / malware Virus:W32/Saburex.A
First posted on 13 July 2010.
Source: SecurityHomeAliases :
There are no other names known for Virus:W32/Saburex.A.
Explanation :
A program that secretly and maliciously integrates itself into program or data files. It spreads by integrating itself into more files each time the host program is run.
Additional DetailsVirus:W32/Saburex.A is an appending file infector virus that may betray its presence by displaying an error message when its infection routine fails to execute.
Saborex.A encrypts its strings using a simple XOR routine.
Infection
During installation, the virus copies itself to the Windows folder, then creates several temporary files in the root directory as well as in the system's designated temporary folder. The files contain virus code fragments and hosts file codes used to form newly infected files.
It then proceeds to search for and infect files with the following characteristics:
€ 'Fixed Drive' drive type (virus randomly checks for logical drives until it finds this type)
€ .EXE extension € file size larger than 80000 hex or 524,288 Bytes
File size checking is done several times and infection is performed utilizing Microsoft Cab APIs.
Saburex.A also searches for files from the root directory using the wildcard *.*
The virus avoids directory or files starting with the following strings:
€ _restore € documents and € music € program files € win
To infect a file, Saburex.A overwrites a block in the first section of the host file and hides it by appending it at the end of the last section together with its virus code.
Activity
Once the file is infected, the virus drops a DLL component into the temporary folder as:
€ [Random Incremental Number].tmp
The DLL component is then executed using Microsoft rundll32:
€ rundll32 %temp%\[Random Incremental Number].tmp,a [Path and Filename of Infected Executable]
When executed, the DLL drops a copy of itself into the windows system directory using the following names:
€ ole16.dll € shell32.dll
If the executed copy is not using the filename of one of the dropped files, the virus will delete the executed copy with the help of a temporary batch file created in the temporary folder with the name:
€ [3 Random Numbers].bat
There are some instances where the malware's DLL component fails to execute due to Windows memory protection. In this case, an error message is likely to appear, which may look as below:
Registry
As a launch point, Saburex.A adds the following registry entry:
€ HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\Classes\CLSID\{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InProcServer32
@ = shell32.dll
@ = ole16.dll
Saburex.A checks the following event name to ensure that only one instance of its DLL component is running in memory:
€ ~DF
Detection
F-Secure Anti-Virus detects this malware with the following updates:
[FSAV_Database_Version]
Version = 2006-12-10_01Last update 13 July 2010
