W32/Agobot-ZH

Please follow the instructions for removing worms.

Check your administrator passwords and review network security.

Download and install the Microsoft patches mentioned above.

You will also need to edit the following registry entries, if they are present. Please read the warning about editing the registry.

At the taskbar, click Start|Run. Type 'Regedit' and press Return. The registry editor opens.

Before you edit the registry, you should make a backup. On the 'Registry' menu, click 'Export Registry File'. In the 'Export range' panel, click 'All', then save your registry as Backup.

Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE entries:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\
Windows TCP/IP = wintcp.exe

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices\
Windows TCP/IP = wintcp.exe

and delete them if they exist.

Close the registry editor.

W32/Agobot-ZH copies itself to network shares with weak passwords and attempts to spread to computers using the DCOM RPC and RPC locator vulnerabilities.

These vulnerabilities allow the worm to execute its code on target computers with system level privileges. For further information on these vulnerabilities and for details on how to patch the computer against such attacks please see Microsoft security bulletins MS03-026 and MS03-001.

When first run W32/Agobot-ZH copies itself to the Windows system folder with the filename wintcp.exe and creates the following registry entries so that the worm is run when Windows starts up:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\
Windows TCP/IP = wintcp.exe

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices\
Windows TCP/IP = wintcp.exe

W32/Agobot-ZH connects to a remote IRC server and joins a specific channel. The backdoor functionality of the worm can then be accessed by an attacker using the IRC network.

The worm also attempts to terminate and disable various security related programs.