bootlegpals: There’s a computer worm called the robot dog virus that was first reported in Aug
bootlegpals: There’s a computer worm called the robot dog virus that was first reported in August, 2007. It mostly impacted people in China who were running Windows. The robot dog used for the icon is based on the appearance of an 11x AIBO. It could download other malicious programs and plugins, steal login information (including login info for games), spread itself across other computers in a network using ARP spoofing, and potentially cause network paralysis. It has affected networks in schools and internet cafes. After the program is executed, it releases a driver called pcihdd.sys which infects a system file called userinit.exe to prevent you from using restore points to get rid of the virus. It exploited the following vulnerabilities which could allow a computer to be controlled remotely without permission: MS06-014 and MS07-017. The robot dog virus isn’t documented too well. There’s multiple sources claiming the virus is actually nameless and was given the name “Robot Dog”, but there’s a screenshot showing a file called edog.exe and two other screenshots where it’s called explorer.exe. Maybe this just depends on the version? The fourth version could cause two files called explorer.exe to appear in task manager. I also found two English sources where it was referred to as Machinedog.dr. A screenshot featuring a file called edog.exe was used in a news article and there’s a link to a report which refers to edog.exe as a dangerous file (the link will download the report). There’s apparently more than 10 versions of the virus (I can’t confirm this, though) and it was predicted back then that it might do more damage than another worm called Panda Burning Incense (I don’t know if it actually ended up causing more damage). I haven’t found a website that describes the differences between all the versions. There’s also a rumor that the author did make themself known online, but I haven’t found any sources identifying the person, proof that the author was arrested, or links to sources where they revealed themself. Below the cut are some of the sources I looked at when typing this summary. I looked at A LOT more sources than what I’ve listed, but I didn’t keep track of all of them while I was typing the content of this post on my phone. If I find more info about this virus, I’ll share it with sources. Keep reading -- source link