W32.Printlove

Posted: June 26, 2012

Threat Metric

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The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Ranking:	4,342
Threat Level:	2/10
Infected PCs:	6,054

First Seen:	June 26, 2012
Last Seen:	October 17, 2023
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

Printlove or W32.Printlove is a worm that exploits printer spools to attack your PC, sometimes causing your confused printer to print out strings of gibberish (which actually is malicious code). SpywareRemove.com malware researchers and others have noted the similarities between Printlove and Trojan Milicenso, although there haven't been confirmed links between these two PC threats. Keeping Printlove from spreading through removable drives should be considered a heavy priority while dealing with a Printlove infection, which should be removed with your preference of anti-malware program. Left undeleted, Printlove is capable of installing other malware or stealing confidential information from Windows computers.

Why Printlove Loves to Print So Much

Printlove's main symptom, and one which Printlove shares with Trojan.Milicenso, is its ability to create nonsensical printer jobs that result in nearly-infinite printouts of random symbols. Ironically, this isn't an actual attack by Printlove or W32.Printlove so much as it is an unintended side effect. Printlove was designed to exploit the code execution vulnerability 'CVE-2010-2729,' which Printlove uses to assist with its distributions to new computers. However, if your Microsoft printer software is patched (which closes the vulnerability), Printlove will, instead, cause the aforementioned random printouts. However, Printlove SpywareRemove.com malware experts do warn that this side effect isn't automatically indicative of all of Printlove's other functions being just as crippled as its self-propagation capabilities.

Typical for a worm, Printlove will also abuse Autorun features to infect new PCs that access folders with hidden copies of Printlove. SpywareRemove.com malware researchers especially have seen Printlove creating copies of itself for removable USB devices, although other locations aren't invulnerable to being infected. Therefore, any PC that shares a USB device with a Printlove-infected computer should, itself, be considered infected until anti-malware software can detect and delete all copies of Printlove.

The Sickle Form That Printlove's Affection Takes

Aside from cloning itself and creating unusual printer issues, Printlove's main payload involves basic backdoor attacks that are used to transmit information about your PC, as well as download other files for execution. Gathered information from Printlove is, so far, limited to basic system data such as your PC's OS type, language, build number and country.

Because Printlove may install other PC threats without your consent or transmit additional types of personal information without visible side effects, any Printlove infection should be treated as a potential high-level security risk. Other than its attempts to copy itself, which are typical strategies for worms, SpywareRemove.com malware experts haven't noted any unusual defenses from Printlove, which should be detectable and deletable by good anti-malware products.

However, Printlove only became widely-recognized in late July of 2012. Anti-malware scanners that haven't received recent database updates may have difficulty detecting or removing Printlove from your computer.

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:

%DriveLetter%\thumbs.exe

File name: %DriveLetter%\thumbs.exe
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file

%DriveLetter%\autorun.inf

File name: %DriveLetter%\autorun.inf
Mime Type: unknown/inf
Group: Malware file

%Temp%\VBS[RANDOM CHARACTERS].tmp.vbs

File name: %Temp%\VBS[RANDOM CHARACTERS].tmp.vbs
Mime Type: unknown/vbs
Group: Malware file

%Temp%\DLL[RANDOM CHARACTERS].tmp.dll

File name: %Temp%\DLL[RANDOM CHARACTERS].tmp.dll
File type: Dynamic link library
Mime Type: unknown/dll
Group: Malware file

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\{Value}HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Security\"AccessVBOM" = "1"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Security\"AccessVBOM" = "1"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Security\"AccessVBOM" = "1"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Security\"AccessVBOM" = "1"

Additional Information

The following URL's were detected:

gloyah.net