W97M.Bablas.BQ is a Microsoft Word macro virus that infects active documents and the Normal.dot template. It also disables access to the Macro Editor and the Visual Basic Editor. W97M.Bablas.BQ hides its activities by stealthing. When the current day is either Friday or Sunday and the time is earlier than 9:00 P.M., the computer beeps and displays a message in Indonesian.
W97M.Bablas.BQ targets active Microsoft Word documents and the Normal.dot template. When it infects a document, it also deletes other macros in the document, leaving only its own macro.
W97M.Bablas.BQ conceals its activity by turning off the following security settings:
SaveNormalPrompt
VirusProtection
SavePropertiesPrompt
NOTE: If you click Options on the Microsoft Word Tools menu, W97M.Bablas.BQ further conceals its activity by turning these settings back on just before Word displays the Options dialog box. After the Options box is displayed, the virus automatically turns these settings off again. (This is done in the background.)
Once infected, the message "You can't create or modify macros" appears if you try to access the following menu commands:
Tools > Macro > Macros
Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor
Tools > Templates and Add-Ins
When you exit Word, this virus checks the day and time. If it is either Friday or Sunday, and if it is earlier than 9:00 P.M., a message in Indonesian appears.
When an infected file begins to open, the menu commands are changed. They are restored when the file is opened. Once this occurs, if there is no currently active document, W97M.Bablas.BQ checks every seven seconds to see if a document has become active. If so, W97M.Bablas.BQ becomes active and immediately infects the active document.
Symantec Security Response encourages all users and administrators to adhere to the following basic security "best practices":
Turn off and remove unneeded services. By default, many operating systems install auxiliary services that are not critical, such as an FTP server, telnet, and a Web server. These services are avenues of attack. If they are removed, blended threats have less avenues of attack and you have fewer services to maintain through patch updates.
If a blended threat exploits one or more network services, disable, or block access to, those services until a patch is applied.
Always keep your patch levels up-to-date, especially on computers that host public services and are accessible through the firewall, such as HTTP, FTP, mail, and DNS services (for example, all Windows-based computers should have the current Service Pack installed.). Additionally, please apply any security updates that are mentioned in this writeup, in trusted Security Bulletins, or on vendor Web sites.
Enforce a password policy. Complex passwords make it difficult to crack password files on compromised computers. This helps to prevent or limit damage when a computer is compromised.
Configure your email server to block or remove email that contains file attachments that are commonly used to spread viruses, such as .vbs, .bat, .exe, .pif and .scr files.
Isolate infected computers quickly to prevent further compromising your organization. Perform a forensic analysis and restore the computers using trusted media.
Train employees not to open attachments unless they are expecting them. Also, do not execute software that is downloaded from the Internet unless it has been scanned for viruses. Simply visiting a compromised Web site can cause infection if certain browser vulnerabilities are not patched.
To recover from this infection:
Run LiveUpdate to make sure that you have the most recent virus definitions.
Start Norton AntiVirus (NAV), and then run a full system scan, making sure that NAV is set to scan all files.
If any files are detected as infected by W97M.Bablas.BQ, click Repair.
