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rfc:rfc1135

Network Working Group J. Reynolds Request for Comments: 1135 ISI

                                                         December 1989
                 The Helminthiasis of the Internet

Status of this Memo

 This memo takes a look back at the helminthiasis (infestation with,
 or disease caused by parasitic worms) of the Internet that was
 unleashed the evening of 2 November 1988.  This RFC provides
 information about an event that occurred in the life of the Internet.
 This memo does not specify any standard.  Distribution of this memo
 is unlimited.

Introduction

  1. —- "The obscure we see eventually, the completely

apparent takes longer." —– Edward R. Murrow

 The helminthiasis of the Internet was a self-replicating program that
 infected VAX computers and SUN-3 workstations running the 4.2 and 4.3
 Berkeley UNIX code.  It disrupted the operations of computers by
 accessing known security loopholes in applications closely associated
 with the operating system.  Despite system administrators efforts to
 eliminate the program, the infection continued to attack and spread
 to other sites across the United States.
 This RFC provides a glimpse at the infection, its festering, and
 cure.  The impact of the worm on the Internet community, ethics
 statements, the role of the news media, crime in the computer world,
 and future prevention will be discussed.  A documentation review
 presents four publications that describe in detail this particular
 parasitic computer program.  Reference and bibliography sections are
 also included in this memo.

1. The Infection

  1. —- "Sandworms, ya hate 'em, right??" —– Michael

Keaton, Beetlejuice

 Defining "worm" versus "virus"
    A "worm" is a program that can run independently, will consume the
    resources of its host from within in order to maintain itself, and
    can propagate a complete working version of itself on to other
    machines.

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    A "virus" is a piece of code that inserts itself into a host,
    including operating systems, to propagate.  It cannot run
    independently.  It requires that its host program be run to
    activate it.
    In the early stages of the helminthiasis, the news media popularly
    cited the Internet worm to be a "virus", which was attributed to
    an early conclusion of some in the computer community before a
    specimen of the worm could be extracted and dissected.  There are
    some computer scientists that still argue over what to call the
    affliction.  In this RFC, we use the term, "worm".
 1.1  Infection - The Worm Attacks
    The worm specifically and only made successful attacks on SUN
    workstations and VAXes running Berkeley UNIX code.
    The Internet worm relied on the several known access loopholes in
    order to propagate over networks.  It relied on implementation
    errors in two network programs: sendmail and fingerd.
    Sendmail is a program that implements the Internet's electronic
    mail services (routing and delivery) interacting with remote sites
    [1, 2].  The feature in sendmail that was violated was a non-
    standard "debug" command.  The worm propagated itself via the
    debug command into remote hosts.  As the worm installed itself in
    a new host the new instance began self-replicating.
    Fingerd is a utility program that is intended to help remote
    Internet users by supplying public information about other
    Internet users.  This can be in the form of identification of the
    full name of, or login name of any local user, whether or not they
    are logged in at the time (see the Finger Protocol [3]).
    Using fingerd, the worm initiated a memory overflow situation by
    sending too many characters for fingerd to accommodate (in the
    gets library routine).  Upon overflowing the storage space, the
    worm was able to execute a small arbitrary program.  Only 4.3BSD
    VAX machines suffered from this attack.
    Another of the worm's methods was to exploit the "trusted host
    features" often used in local networks to propagate (using rexec
    and rsh).
    It also infected machines in /etc/hosts.equiv, machines in
    /.rhosts, machines in cracked accounts' .forward files, machines
    cracked accounts' .rhosts files, machines listed as network
    gateways in routing tables, machines at the far end of point-to-

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    point interfaces, and other machines at randomly guessed addresses
    on networks of first hop gateways.
    The Internet worm was also able to infect systems using guessed
    passwords, typically spreading itself within local networks by
    this method.  It tried to guess passwords, and upon gaining
    access, the worm was able to pose as a legitimate user.
 1.2  Festering - Password Cracking
    The worm festered by going into a password cracking phase,
    attempting to access accounts with obvious passwords (using clues
    readily available in the /etc/passwd file), such as: none at all,
    the user name, the user name appended to itself, the "nickname",
    the last name, the last name spelled backwards.  It also tried
    breaking into into accounts with passwords from a personalized 432
    word dictionary, and accounts with passwords in /usr/dict/words.
    Most users encountered a slowing of their programs, as the systems
    became overloaded trying to run many copies of the worm program,
    or a lack of file space if many copies of the worm's temporary
    files existed concurrently.  Actually, the worm was very careful
    to hide itself and leave little evidence of its passage through a
    system.  The users at the infected sites may have seen strange
    files that showed up in the /usr/tmp directories of some machines
    and obscure messages appeared in the log files of sendmail.
 1.3  The Cure
    Teams of computer science students and staff worked feverishly to
    understand the worm.  The key was seen to get a source (C
    language) version of the program.  Since the only isolated
    instances of the the worm were binary code, a major effort was
    made to translate back to source, that is decompile the code, and
    to study just what damage the worm was capable of.  Two specific
    teams emerged in the battle against the Internet worm: the
    Berkeley Team and the MIT team.  They communicated and exchanged
    code extensively.  Both teams were able to scrutinize it and take
    immediate action on a cure and prevent reinfection.  Just like
    regular medical Doctors, the teams searched, found and isolated a
    worm specimen which they could study.  Upon analyzing the specimen
    and the elements of its design, they set about to develop methods
    to treat and defeat it.  Through the use of the "old boy network"
    of UNIX system wizards (to find out something, one asks an
    associate or friend if they know the answer or who else they could
    refer to to find out the answer), email and phone calls were
    extensively used to alert the computer world of the program
    patches that could be used at sites to close the sendmail hole and

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    fingerd holes.  Once the information was disseminated to the sites
    and these holes were patched, the Internet worm was stopped.  It
    could not reinfect the same computers again, unless the worm was
    still sitting in an infected trusted host computer.
    The Internet worm was eliminated from most computers within 48-72
    hours after it had appeared, specifically through the efforts of
    computer science staffs at the University research centers.
    Government and Commercial agencies apparently were slow in coming
    around to recognizing the helminthiasis and eradicating it.

2. Impact

  1. —- "Off with his head!!!" —– The Red Queen,

Alice in Wonderland

 Two lines have been drawn in the computer community in the aftermath
 of the Internet worm of November 1988.  One group contends that the
 release of the worm program was a naive accident, and that the worm
 "escaped" during testing.  Yet, when the worm program was unleashed,
 it was obvious it was spreading unchecked.  Another group argues that
 the worm was deliberately released to blatantly point out security
 defects to a community that was aware of the problems, but were
 complacent about fixing them.  Yet, one does not necessarily need to
 deliberately disrupt the entire world in order to report a problem.
 Both groups agree that the community cannot condone worm infestation
 whether "experimental" or "deliberate" as a means to heighten public
 awareness, as the consequences of such irresponsible acts can be
 devastating.  Meanwhile, several in the news media stated that the
 author of the worm did the computer community a favor by exposing the
 security flaws, and that bugs and security flaws will not get fixed
 without such drastic measures as the Internet worm program.
 In the short term, the worm program did heighten the computer
 community's awareness of security flaws.  Also, the "old boy network"
 proved it was still alive and well!  While networking and computers
 as a whole have grown by leaps and bounds in the last twenty years,
 the Internet community still has the "old boys" who trust and
 communicate well with each other in the face of adversity.
 In the long term, all results of the helminthiasis are not complete.
 Many sites have either placed restrictions on access to their
 machines, and a few have chosen to remove themselves from the
 Internet entirely.  The legal consequences of the Internet worm
 program as a computer crime are still pending, and may stay in that
 condition into the next decade.

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 Yet, the problem of computer crime is, on a layman's level, a social
 one.  Legal statutes, which notoriously are legislated after the
 fact, are only one element of the solution.  Development of
 enforceable ethical standards that are universally agreed on in the
 computer community, coupled with enforceable laws should help
 eradicate computer crime.

3. Ethics and the Internet

  1. —- "If you're going to play the game properly,

you'd better know every rule." —– Barbara Jordan

 Ethical behavior is that of conforming to accepted professional
 standards of conduct; dealing with what is good or bad within a set
 of moral principles or values.  Up until recently, most computer
 professionals and groups have not been overly concerned with
 questions of ethics.
 Organizations and computer professional groups have recently, in the
 aftermath of the Internet worm, issued their own "Statement of
 Ethics".  Ethics statements published by the Internet Activities
 Board (IAB), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Massachusetts
 Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Computer Professionals for
 Social Responsibility (CPSR) are discussed below.
 3.1  The IAB
    The IAB issued a statement of policy concerning the proper use of
    the resources of the Internet in January, 1989 [4] (and reprinted
    in the Communications of the ACM, June 1989).  An excerpt:
    The Internet is a national facility whose utility is largely a
    consequence of its wide availability and accessibility.
    Irresponsible use of this critical resource poses an enormous
    threat to its continued availability to the technical community.
    The U.S. Government sponsors of this system have a fiduciary
    responsibility to the public to allocate government resources
    wisely and effectively.  Justification for the support of this
    system suffers when highly disruptive abuses occur.  Access to and
    use of the Internet is a privilege and should be treated as such
    by all users of this system.
    The IAB strongly endorses the view of the Division Advisory Panel
    of the National Science Foundation Division of Network,
    Communications Research and Infrastructure which, in paraphrase,
    characterized as unethical and unacceptable any activity which
    purposely:

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       (a) seeks to gain unauthorized access to the resources of the
           Internet,
       (b) disrupts the intended use of the Internet,
       (c) wastes resources (people, capacity, computer) through such
           actions,
       (d) destroys the integrity of computer-based information, and/or
       (e) compromises the privacy of users.
    The Internet exists in the general research milieu.  Portions of
    it continue to be used to support research and experimentation on
    networking.  Because experimentation on the Internet has the
    potential to affect all of its components and users, researchers
    have the responsibility to exercise great caution in the conduct
    of their work.  Negligence in the conduct of Internet-wide
    experiments is both irresponsible and unacceptable.
    The IAB plans to take whatever actions it can, in concert with
    Federal agencies and other interested parties, to identify and to
    set up technical and procedural mechanisms to make the Internet
    more resistant to disruption.  Such security, however, may be
    extremely expensive and may be counterproductive if it inhibits
    the free flow of information which makes the Internet so valuable.
    In the final analysis, the health and well-being of the Internet
    is the responsibility of its users who must, uniformly, guard
    against abuses which disrupt the system and threaten its long-term
    viability.
 3.2  NSF
    The NSF issued an ethical network use statement on 30 November
    1988, during the regular meeting of the Division Advisory Panel
    for Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure (and
    reprinted in the Communications of the ACM (June of 1989) [5]),
    that stated, in part:
    The Division Advisory Panel (DAP) of the NSF Division of
    Networking and Communication Research and Infrastructure (DNCRI)
    deplores lapses of ethical behavior which cause disruption to our
    national network resources.  Industry, government, and academe
    have established computer networks in support of research and
    scholarship.  Recent events have accentuated the importance of
    establishing community standards for the ethical use of networks.
    In this regard, the DNCRI DAP defines as unethical any activity
    which purposefully or through negligence:

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       a. disrupts the intended use of the networks,
       b. wastes resources through such actions (people, bandwidth or
          computer),
       c. destroys the integrity of computer-based information,
       d. compromises the privacy of users,
       e. consumes unplanned resources for control and eradication.
    We encourage organizations managing and operating networks to
    adopt and publicize policies and standards for ethical behavior.
    We also encourage these organizations to adopt administrative
    procedures to enforce appropriate disciplinary responses to
    violations and to work with appropriate bodies on drafting
    legislation in this area.
 3.3  MIT
    MIT issued a statement of ethics entitled, "Teaching Students
    About Responsible Use of Computers" in 1985-1986 (and reprinted in
    the Communications of the ACM (June 1989) [6]).  The official
    statement of ethics specifically outlined MIT's position on the
    intended use, privacy and security, system integrity, and
    intellectual property rights.
    Those standards, outlined in the MIT Bulletin under academic
    procedures, call for all members of the community to act in a
    responsible, ethical, and professional way.  The members of the
    MIT community also carry the responsibility to use the system in
    accordance with MIT's standards of honesty and personal conduct.
 3.4  CPSR
    The CPSR issued a statement on the Computer Virus in November 1988
    (and reprinted in the Communications of the ACM (June 1989) [7]).
    The CPSR believes:
    The incident should prompt critical review of our dependence on
    complex computer networks, particularly for military and defense-
    related function.  The flaws that permitted the recent virus to
    spread will eventually be fixed, but other flaws will remain.
    Security loopholes are inevitable in any computer network and are
    prevalent in those that support general-purpose computing and are
    widely accessible.
    An effective way to correct known security flaws is to publish

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    descriptions of the flaws so that they can be corrected.  We
    therefore view the effort to conceal technical descriptions of the
    recent virus as short-sighted.
    CPSR believes that innovation, creativity, and the open exchange
    of ideas are the ingredients of scientific advancement and
    technological achievement.  Computer networks, such as the
    Internet, facilitate this exchange.  We cannot afford policies
    that might restrict the ability of computer researchers to
    exchange their ideas with one another.  More secure networks, such
    as military and financial networks, sharply restrict access and
    offer limited functionality.  Government, industry, and the
    university community should support the continued development of
    network technology that provides open access to many users.
    The computer virus has sent a clear warning to the computing
    community and to society at large.  We hope it will provoke a long
    overdue public discussion about the vulnerabilities of computer
    networks, and the technological, ethical, and legal choices we
    must address.

4. The Role of the Media

  1. —- "You don't worry about whether or not they've

written it, you worry whether or not they've read it

       before they go on the air." ----- Linda Ellerbee,
       the Pat Sajak Show.
 Airplane accidents, Pit Bulldog attacks, drought, disease...the media
 is there...whether you want them there or not.  Predictably, some
 members of the press grabbed on to the worm invasion of the Internet
 and sensationalized the outbreak.  Sites were named (including sites
 like NASA Ames and Lawrence Livermore) and pointed to as being
 "violated".  Questions of computer security were rampant.  Questions
 of national security appropriately followed.  The alleged perpetrator
 of the worm tended to be thought of by the press as a "genius" or a
 "hero".
 During the helminthiasis of the Internet, handling this news media
 "invasion", was critical.  It's akin to trying to extinguish a major
 brush fire with a news reporter and a microphone in your way.  Time
 is of the essence.  The U.C. Berkeley group, among others, reported
 that it was a problem to get work accomplished with the press
 hounding them incessantly.  At MIT, their news office was commended
 in doing their job of keeping the press informed and satisfied, yet
 out of the way of the students and staff working on the a cure.
 What is an appropriate response??  At MIT, even a carefully worded

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 "technical" statement to the press resulted in very few coherent
 press releases on the Internet worm.  Extrapolation and "flavoring"
 by the press were common.  According to Eichin and Rochlis, "We were
 unable to show the T.V. crew anything "visual" caused by the virus,
 something which eventually become a common media request and
 disappointment.  Instead, they settled for people looking at
 workstations talking 'computer talk'." [10]
 Cornell University was very critical of the press in their report to
 the Provost: "The Commission suggests that media exaggeration of the
 value and technical sophistication of this kind of activity obscures
 the far more accomplished work of those students who complete their
 graduate studies without public fanfare; who make constructive
 contributions to computer sciences and the advancement of knowledge
 through their patiently constructed dissertation; and who subject
 their work to the close scrutiny and evaluation of their peers, and
 not to the interpretations of the popular press." [9]

5. Crime in the Computer World

  1. —- "A recent survey by the American Bar Association

found that almost one-half of those companies and

       Government agencies that responded had been victimized
       by some form of computer crime.  The known financial loss
       from those crimes was estimated as high as $730 million,
       and the report concluded that computer crime is among
       the worst white-collar offenses." ----- The Computer
       Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986
 The term White Collar crime was first used by Edwin Sutherland, a
 noted American criminologist, in 1939.  Sutherland contended that the
 popular view of crime as primarily a lower class (Blue Collar)
 activity was based on the failure to consider the activities of the
 robber barons and captains of industry who violated the law with
 virtual impunity.
 In this day and age, White Collar crime refers to violations of the
 law committed by salaried or professional persons in conjunction with
 their work.  Computer crimes are identified and included in this
 classification.  Yet, law enforcement agencies have historically paid
 little attention to this new phenomenon.  When a trial and conviction
 does occur, it's resulted more often in a fine and probation, than a
 prison term.  A shift became apparent in the late 1970s, when the
 FBI's ABSCAM investigation (1978-80) resulted in the conviction of
 several U.S. legislators for bribery and related charges.
 The legal implication of the Internet worm program as a computer
 crime is still pending, as there are few cases to rely on.  On the

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 Federal level, HR-6061, "The Computer Virus Eradication Act of 1988"
 (Herger & Carr) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
 On the State level, several states are considering their own
 statutes.  Time will tell.
 Meanwhile, computer network security is still allegedly being
 compromised, as described in a recent DDN Security Bulletin [12].

6. Future Prevention

  1. —- "This is a pretty kettle of fish." —– Queen Mary to

Stanley Baldwin at the time of Edward VII's abdication

 What roles can the computer community as a whole, play in preventing
 such outbreaks?  Why were many people aware of the debug problem in
 the sendmail program and the overflow problem in fingerd, yet,
 appropriate fixes were not installed in existing systems?
 Various opinions have emerged:
       1) Computer ethics must be taken seriously.  A standard for
          computer ethics is extremely important for the new groups of
          computer professionals graduating out of Universities.  The
          "old" professionals and "new" professionals who use
          computers are ALL responsible for their applications.
       2) The "powers that be" of the Internet (IAB, DARPA, NSF, etc.)
          should pursue the current problems in network security, and
          cause the flaws to be fixed.
       3) The openness and free flow of information of networking
          should be rightfully preserved, as it demonstrated its worth
          during the helminthiasis by expediting the analysis and cure
          of the infestation.
       4) Promote and coordinate the establishment of committees or
          agency "police" panels that would handle, judge, and enforce
          violations based on a universally set standard of computer
          ethics.
       5) The continued incidences of "computer crime" show a lack of
          professionalism and ethical standards in the computer
          community.  Ethics statements like those discussed in this
          RFC, not only need to be published, but enforced as well.
          There is a continuing need to instill a professional code of
          ethics and responsibilities in order to preserve the
          computer community.

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7. Documentation Review

  1. —- "Everybody wants to get into the act!" —– Jimmy

Durante.

 Quite a number of articles and papers were published very soon after
 the worm invasion.  Books, articles, and other documents are
 continuing to be written and published on the subject (see Section 9,
 Bibliography).  In this RFC, we have chosen four to review: The
 Cornell University Report on "The Computer Worm" [8], presented to
 the Provost of the University, Eichin and Rochlis' "With Microscope
 and Tweezers: An Analysis of the Internet Virus of November 1988"
 [9], Donn Seeley's "A Tour of the Worm" [10], and Gene Spafford's,
 "The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis" [11].
 7.1  The Cornell University Report
    The Cornell University Report on "The Computer Worm", was
    presented to the Provost of the University on 6 February 1989, by
    the Commission of Preliminary Enquiry, consisting of: Ted
    Eisenberg, Law, David Gries, Computer Science, Juris Hartmanis,
    Computer Science, Don Holcomb, Physics, M. Stuart Lynn, Office of
    Information Technologies (Chair), and Thomas Santoro, Office of
    the University Counsel.
    An introduction set the stage of the intent and purpose of the
    Commission:
       1)  Accumulate all evidence concerning the involvement
           of the alleged Cornell University Computer Science
           graduate student in the worm infestation of the Internet,
           and to assess the gathered evidence to determine the
           alleged graduate student was the perpetrator.
       2)  Accumulate all evidence concerning the potential
           involvement of any other members of the Cornell University
           community, and to assess such evidence to determine
           whether or not any other members of the Cornell University
           community was involved in unleashing the worm on to the
           Internet, or knew of the potential worm infestation ahead
           of time.
       3)  Evaluate relevant computer policies and procedures to
           determine which, if any, were violated and to make
           preliminary recommendations to the Provost as to
           whether any of such policies and procedures should be
           modified to inhibit potential future security violations
           of this general type.

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    In the summary of findings and comments, the Commission named the
    Cornell University first year Computer Science graduate student
    that allegedly created the worm and unleashed it on to the
    Internet.  The findings section also discussed:
       1)  the impact of the invasion of the worm,
       2)  the mitigation attempts to stop the worm,
       3)  the violation of computer abuse policies,
       4)  the intent,
       5)  security attitudes and knowledge,
       6)  technical sophistication,
       7)  Cornell's involvement,
       8)  ethical considerations,
       9)  community sentiment,
       10) and Cornell University's policies on computer abuse.
    The report concluded that the worm program's gathering of
    unauthorized passwords and the dissemination of the worm over a
    national network were wrong.  The Commission also disclaimed that
    contrary to media reports, Cornell University DID NOT condone the
    worm infection, nor heralded the unleashing of the worm program as
    a heroic event.  The Commission did continue to encourage the free
    flow of scholarly research and reasonable trust within the
    University/Research communities.
    A background on the worm program, methods of investigation, an
    introduction to the evidence, an interpretation and findings,
    acknowledgements, and an extensive appendices were also included
    in the Commission's report.
 7.2  "With Microscope and Tweezers: An Analysis of the Internet
      Virus of November 1988"
    Eichin and Rochlis' "With Microscope and Tweezers: An Analysis of
    the Internet Virus of November 1988", provides a detailed
    dissection of the worm program.  The paper discusses the major
    points of the worm program then reviews strategies, chronology,
    lessons and open issues, acknowledgements; also included are a
    detailed appendix on the worm program subroutine by subroutine, an
    appendix on the cast of characters, and a reference section.
    A discussion of the terms "worm" versus "virus" is presented.
    These authors concluded that it was a "virus" infection, not worm
    infection.  Thus they use the term "virus" in their document.  In
    Section 1, goals and targets by the teams of computer scientists
    were defined.  There were three steps taken to find out the inner
    workings of the virus:

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  1. isolating a specimen of the virus in a form

which could be analyzed.

  1. "decompiling" the virus, into a form that could

be shown to reduce to the executable of the real

         things, so that the higher level version could be
         interpreted.
  1. analyzing the strategies used by the virus, and

the elements of its design, in order to find weaknesses

         and methods of defeating it.
    Major points were outlined of how the virus attacked and who it
    attacked:
       How it entered.
       Who it attacked.
       What it attacked.
       What it did NOT do.
    In Section 2, the target of the attacks by the virus were
    discussed.  This included the sendmail debug mode, the finger
    daemon bug, rexec and passwords, rsh, trusted host features, and
    information flow.  A description of the virus' self protection
    included how it covered its tracks, and what camouflage it used to
    go undetected to the machines and system administrators.  Flaws
    were analyzed in three subjects: reinfection prevention,
    heuristics, and vulnerabilities not used.
    Many defenses were launched to stop the virus.  Some were
    convenient or inconvenient for end users of the infected systems.
    Those mentioned in this document included:
  1. full isolation from the network
  1. turning off mail service
  1. patching out the "debug" command in sendmail
  1. shutting down the finger daemon
  1. fixing the finger daemon
  1. mkdir /usr/tmp/sh (a simple way to keep the virus

from propagating)

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  1. defining pleasequit (did not stop the virus)
  1. renaming the UNIX C compiler and linker
  1. requiring new passwords for all users
    After the virus was diagnosed, a tool was created which duplicated
    the password attack (including the virus' internal directory) and
    was posted to the Internet.  System administrators were able to
    analyze the passwords in use on their system.
    Section 3 chronicles the events that took place between Wednesday,
    2 November 1988 through Friday, 11 November 1988 (EST).  In
    Section 4, lessons and open issues are viewed and discussed:
  1. Connectivity was important.
  1. The "old boy network" worked.
  1. Late night authentication is an interesting problem.

(How did you know that it really is MIT on the

         phone??)
  1. Whom do you call (if you need to talk to the manager of

the Ohio State University network at 3 o'clock in the

         morning)?
  1. Speaker phones and conference calling proved very useful.
  1. The "teams" that were formed and how they reacted to

the virus is a topic for future study.

  1. Misinformation and illusions ran rampant.
  1. Tools were not as important as one would have

anticipated.

  1. Source availability was important.
  1. The academic sites performed the best, better than

government and commercial sites.

  1. Managing the press was critical.
    General points for the future:
  1. "We have met the enemy and he is us."

(Alleged author of the virus was an insider.)

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  1. Diversity is good.
  1. "The cure shouldn't be worse than the disease."

(It may be more expensive to prevent such attacks

         than is is to clean up after them.)
  1. Defenses must be at the host level, not the network level.

(The network performed its function perfectly and should

         not be faulted; the flaws were in several application
         programs.)
  1. Logging information is important.
  1. Denial of service attacks are easy.
  1. A central security fix repository may be a good idea.
  1. Knee-jerk reactions should be avoided.
    Appendix A describes the virus program subroutine by subroutine.
    A flow of information among the subroutines is pictured on page
    19.  Appendix B presents the 432 words built in the worm's
    dictionary.  Appendix C lists the "cast of characters" in
    defeating the virus.
 7.3  "A Tour of the Worm"
    In Donn Seeley's "A Tour of the Worm", specific details were
    presented as a "walk thru" of this particular worm program.  The
    paper opened with an abstract, introduction, detailed chronology
    of events upon the discovery of the worm, an overview, the
    internals of the worm, personal opinions, and conclusion.
    The chronology section presented a partial list representing the
    current known dates and times (in PST).  In the descriptive
    overview, the worm is defined as a 99-line bootstrap program
    written in the C language, plus a large relocatable object file
    that was available in VAX and various Sun-3 versions.  Seeley
    classified activities of the worm into two categories of attack
    and defense.  Attack consisted of locating hosts (and accounts) to
    penetrate, then exploiting security holes on remote systems to
    pass across a copy of the worm and run it.  The defense tactics
    fell into three categories: preventing the detection of intrusion,
    inhibiting the analysis of the program, and authenticating other
    worms.  When analyzing this particular program, Seeley stated that
    it is just as important to establish what the program DOES NOT do,
    as what it does do:

Reynolds [Page 15] RFC 1135 The Helminthiasis of the Internet December 1989

       This worm did not delete a system's files,
       This worm did not modify existing files,
       This worm did not install trojan horses,
       This worm did not record or transmit decrypted passwords,
       This worm did not try to capture superuser privileges,
       This worm did not propagate over UUCP, X.25, DECNET, or BITNET,
       This worm specifically draws upon TCP/IP,
       and
       This worm did not infect System V systems, unless they had been
       modified to use Berkeley network programs like sendmail,
       fingerd, and rexec.
    In section 4, the "internals" of the worm were examined and
    charted.  The main thread of control in the worm was analyzed,
    then an examination of the worm's data structure was presented.
    Population growth of the worm, security holes, the worms' use of
    rsh and rexec network services, the use of the TCP finger service
    to gain entry to a system, and the sendmail attack are discussed.
    Password cracking and faster password encryption algorithms are
    discussed.
    In the opinions section, certain questions that a "mythical
    ordinary system administrator" might ask were discussed:
       Did the worm cause damage?
       Was the worm malicious?
       Will publication or worm details further harm security?
 7.4  "The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis"
    Gene Spafford's "The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis",
    described the infection of the Internet as a worm program that
    exploited flaws in utility programs in UNIX based systems.  His
    report gives a detailed description of the components of the worm
    program: data and functions.  He focuses his study on two
    completely independent reverse-compilations of the worm and a
    version disassembled to VAX assembly language.

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    In Section 4, Spafford provided a high-level example of how the
    worm program functioned.  The worm consisted of two parts: a main
    program, and a bootstrap (or vector) program.  A description from
    the point of view of a host that was infected was presented.
    Section 5 describes the data structures and organization of the
    routines of the program:
       1)  The worm had few global data structures.
       2)  The worm constructed a linked list of host
           records.
       3)  The worm constructed a simple array of gateway
           IP addresses through the use of the system
           "netstat" command.
       4)  An array of records was filled in with information
           about each network interface active on the current host.
       5)  A linked list of records was built to hold user
           information.
       6)  The program maintained an array of "object" that
           held the files that composed the worm.
       7)  A mini-dictionary of words was present in the worm
           to use in password guessing.
       8)  Every text string used by the program, except for
           the words in the mini-dictionary, was masked (XOR)
           with the bit pattern 0x81.
       9)  The worm used the following routines:
            setup and utility:
                    main, doit, crypt, h_addaddr,
                    h_addname, h_addr2host, h_clean,
                    h_name2host, if_init, loadobject,
                    makemagic, netmastfor, permute,
                    rt_init, supports_rsh, and supports_telnet
            network and password attacks:
                    attack_network, attack_user, crack_0,
                    crack_1, crack_2, crack_3, cracksome,
                    ha, hg, hi, hl, hul, infect, scan_gateways,
                    sendWorm, try_fingerd, try_password,
                    try_rsh, try_sendmail, and waithit

Reynolds [Page 17] RFC 1135 The Helminthiasis of the Internet December 1989

            Camouflage:
                    checkother, other_sleep, send_message,
                    and xorbuf
 In Section 6, Spafford provides an analysis of the code of the worm.
 He discusses the structure and style, the problems of functionality,
 camouflage, specific comments, the sendmail attack, the machines
 involved, and the portability considerations.
 Finally, appendices supply the "mini-dictionary" of words contained
 in the worm, the bootstrap (vector) program that the worm traversed
 over to each machine, a corrected fingerd program, and the patches
 developed and invoked to sendmail to rectify the infection.

8. References

 [1]  Allman, E., "Sendmail - An Internetwork Mail Router", University
      of California, Berkeley, Issued with the BSD UNIX documentation
      set, 1983.
 [2]  Postel, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 821,
      USC/Information Sciences Institute, August 1982.
 [3]  Harrenstien, K., "NAME/FINGER", RFC 742, SRI, December 1977.
 [4]  Internet Activities Board, "Ethics and the Internet", RFC 1087,
      IAB, January 1989.  Also appears in the Communications of the
      ACM, Vol. 32, No. 6, Pg. 710, June 1989.
 [5]  National Science Foundation, "NSF Poses Code of Networking
      Ethics", Communications of the ACM, Vol. 32, No. 6, Pg. 688,
      June 1989.  Also appears in the minutes of the regular meeting
      of the Division Advisory Panel for Networking and Communications
      Research and Infrastructure, Dave Farber, Chair, November 29-30
      1988.
 [6]  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Teaching Students About
      Responsible Use of Computers", MIT, 1985-1986.  Also reprinted
      in the Communications of the ACM, Vol. 32, No. 6, Pg. 704,
      Athena Project, MIT, June 1989.
 [7]  Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, "CPSR
      Statement on the Computer Virus", CPSR, Communications of the
      ACM, Vol. 32, No. 6, Pg. 699, June 1989.
 [8]  Eisenberg, T., D. Gries, J. Hartmanis, D. Holcomb, M. Lynn, and
      T. Santoro, "The Computer Worm", Cornell University, 6 February
      1989.

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 [9]  Eichin, M., and J. Rochlis, "With Microscope and Tweezers: An
      Analysis of the Internet Virus of November 1988", Massachusetts
      Institute of Technology, February 1989.
[10]  Seeley, D., "A Tour of the Worm", Proceedings of 1989 Winter
      USENIX Conference, Usenix Association, San Diego, CA, February
      1989.
[11]  Spafford, E., "The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis", Computer
      Communication Review, Vol. 19, No. 1, ACM SIGCOM, January 1989.
      Also issued as Purdue CS Technical Report CSD-TR-823, 28
      November 1988.
[12]  DCA DDN Defense Communications System, "DDN Security Bulletin
      03", DDN Security Coordination Center, 17 October 1989.

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10. Security Considerations

 If security considerations had not been so widely ignored in the
 Internet, this memo would not have been possible.

Author's Address

 Joyce K. Reynolds
 University of Southern California
 Information Sciences Institute
 4676 Admiralty Way
 Marina del Rey, CA 90292
 Phone: (213) 822-1511
 EMail: JKREY@ISI.EDU

Reynolds [Page 33]

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