| MiMail.I and MiMail.J are mass mailing worms that attempts to steal credit card information. They masquerade as a PayPal Secure Application email similar to the following |
Subject:
YOUR PAYPAL.COM ACCOUNT EXPIRES
Attachment: paypal.asp.scr or www.paypal.com.scr
Message:
Dear PayPal member,
PayPal would like to inform you about some important information
regarding your PayPal account. This account, which is associated with
the email address
<address>
will be expiring within five business days. We apologize for any
inconvenience that this may cause, but this is occurring because all of
our customers are required to update their account settings with their
personal information.
We are taking these actions because we are implementing a new security
policy on our website to insure everyone's absolute privacy. To avoid
any interruption in PayPal services then you will need to run the
application that we have sent with this email (see attachment) and
follow the instructions. Please do not send your personal information
through email, as it will not be as secure.
IMPORTANT! If you do not update your information with our secure
application within the next five business days then we will be forced
to deactivate your account and you will not be able to use your PayPal
account any longer. It is strongly recommended that you take a few
minutes out of your busy day and complete this now.
DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE VIA EMAIL! This mail is sent by an
automated message system and the reply will not be received.
Thank you for using PayPal.
How Does MiMail.I Worm Infect My System?
It creates a file named svchost32.exe in the Windows directory along with a temporary file and adds the following registry key to the system.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Run
"SvcHost32" = C:\Windows\svchost32.exe
Then it displays the following screen to try to steal credit card information
It then stores this information in the file c:\ppinfo.sys and sends this information to four predetermined addresses. After sending the information, it searches for email addresses in the cached internet files on the computer and saves these addresses to the file c:\windows\el388.tmp. It mass mails the virus to these addresses.
How Can I Remove the MiMail.I worm?
Follow these steps in removing the MiMail.I worm.
1) Terminate the running program
- Open the Windows Task Manager by either pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL on Win9x machines or CTL+Shift+Tab and clicking on the Processes tab on WinNT/2000/XP machines.
- Locate the following program, click on it and End Task or End Process
SVCHOST32
- Close Task Manager
2) Remove the Registry entries
- Click on Start, Run, Regedit
- In the left panel go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>Current Version>Run
- In the right panel, right-click and delete the following entry
"SvcHost32" = C:\Windows\svchost32.exe
- Close the Registry Editor
3) Delete the infected files (for Windows ME and XP remember to turn off System Restore before searching for and deleting these files to remove infected backed up files as well)
- Click
Start, point to Find or Search, and then click Files or Folders.
- Make
sure that "Look in" is set to (C:\WINDOWS).
- In the
"Named" or "Search for..." box, type, or copy and paste, the file
names: (these are all in the Windows directory)
svchost32.exe (in the Windows directory)
C:\ppinfo.sys
C:\pp.hta
C:\pp.gif
- Click
Find Now or Search Now.
- Delete the displayed files.
4) Reboot the computer and run a thorough virus scan using your favorite antivirus program.
For Automatic Removal of MiMail.I and MiMail.J worms, download the Symantec removal tool
Other Variations of this virus
Mimail.A Worm Removal
Instructions
Mimail.C Worm
Removal Instructions
Mimail.D Worm
Removal Instructions
MiMail.E Worm
Removal Instructions
MiMail.F Worm
Removal Instructions
MiMail.G Worm
Removal Instructions
Tools for Removing Spyware, Adware, and Malware
PC HELL
Other Pages
Welchia (Dllhost.exe and SVCHost.exe) Worm Removal
Uninstall Antivir Instructions
How to Manually Run the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool
Bloodhound.Exploit.6 Virus Removal
Backdoor SDBot.H Trojan Removal
