Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!netcom!rodent From: rodent@netcom.COM (Ben Discoe) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: A virus that popped up on my 3000's hard drive Message-ID: <1991Apr24.024037.25613@netcom.COM> Date: 24 Apr 91 02:40:37 GMT Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest} Lines: 30 I practice safe software, never running programs from BBSs, never swapping software with pirates, etc. However, the 3000 that we do our commercial development on was struck by a virus today. When starting ced (CygnusEd), I got a black screen with thick white letters saying something along the lines of "Computer Viruses are a horrible Disease... This is the Cure" with something else that went by so quick I couldn't read it. The next time I rebooted, I got a 1-2 second pause before any program ran, and the Amiga ignored my system-configuration file. Looking around, I found a file in DEVS: with an apparently blank file name ("") which was tricky to delete. Once it was removed, my system went back to normal... apparently. The "Computer Viruses are a Disease" message has come back three times since then, so the darn virus is still alive, hiding in there somewhere. It also modified "setpatch", the first line in my startup-sequence, to be some mysterious chunk of code. All this is enormously surprising, because: 1. The only floppies that have entered my machine lately are the SAS/C 5.1 upgrade disks, which are SURELY virus-free! 2. This is on a 3000 under 2.0, which I doubt any viruses are intended to survive in. Perhaps that's why I was able to cure the symptoms but not the disease. Can someone help me extinguish this thing? And why haven't I seen even a MENTION of viruses in any Amiga group in months? Were they all supposedly exterminated with some super-virus-killer? -------------- Ben in San Jose, trying to escape this horrible city.