I picked this one up from the Securiteam blog this evening...it seems there's a new HaxDoor variant out. Symantec's technical write-up contains a lot of detail (useful to forensic analysts...the guys on the FIRST list should take note), and even though they do classify this one as a "backdoor", they do actually use the word "rootkit". For further reading:

• Trend Micro
• Sophos (probably the least useful)
  
• McAfee (click on "Symptoms")

This variant captures keystrokes, steals passwords, allows the attacker to download files, in addition to hiding itself, installing itself as a service, attempting to disable the Windows Security Center, and maintaining additional persistence by adding an entry to the following Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify\

Here's some info from MS on that Winlogon\Notify entry.

One thing I think that's needed is an understanding of how clear, detailed write-ups on things like this are important to the IR/CF community. This sort of thing is very helpful when you're trying to ascertain the sophistication of an intrusion, and perhaps even develop some next steps. Remember, things such as NTFS ADSs and esoteric Registry key entries may be ho-hum boring to a lot of folks, but they're all pieces of the puzzle if you're doing IR/CF.

If you think you may have a rootkit, check out one of these tools.

I was browsing the F-Secure blog this morning and found something interesting...from last Friday, there was this post about reselling stolen information. Now, this is nothing new...this is just part of how organized online crime is becoming. Rather than one person doing everything, someone will purchase malware and use it to infect systems, then collect the data from Protected Storage, keystroke loggers, etc. This information is then sold to others for use...in fraud, identity theft, etc.

For a good example of this, take a look at Brian Krebs' story from 19 Feb 06.

What I thought was most interesting about the F-Secure blog entry was this:

These changing Haxdoor variants are generated with a toolkit known as "A-311 Death".

The toolkit itself is sold on the Internet by its author, known as "Corpse" or "Korpsov".

Okay, this is nothing new, either. Selling malware toolkits or custom rootkits is nothing new, either. This toolkit is based on Haxdoor. I started taking a look around and I found some interesting links. One was from the nmap-dev list...it's a discussion of a service detection signature for rootkits produced from this toolkit.

My post on Gromozon has some links to rootkit detection software.

Additional Resources:
AusCERT
McAfee Rootkits: The Growing Threat paper
Symantec C variant, D variant