Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!hc!beta!cmcl2!vx2!spector
From: spector@vx2.GBA.NYU.EDU (David HM Spector)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: I've got a virus and I don't like it
Message-ID: <650007@vx2.GBA.NYU.EDU>
Date: 8 Mar 88 15:34:00 GMT
References: <4731@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 39


 

It seems you have been bitten by a virus whose sources were uploaded to Compu-
serve sevral months ago...  The author, a fellow in West Germany, thought it
would be educational to distribute these example viruses in source form to 
encourage people to write defenses against them.  His stated intent in writing
a virus in the first place was to keep people from running possibly virus ridden
program on their production Macintoshes which had been previously hit by
viruses....  its signature, in the orignal sources, was a resource type of
nVir... its a simple yet potent virus and very easily modified to do bad 
things.

	... unfortunately the only way around most of these viruses is to
replace your system folder. (Make sure you do this from a WRITE-LOCKED 
copy of the Apple System installer... or else you'll end up back where you
started, with an infected system.... there is another problems, that being
that the virus  that was on CompuServe knows how to infect APPLICATIONS, as
well as the system itself.  Pretty depressing....

For more info on this virus, take a look at Risks Digest volume 6, Nos. 7,
22,23,24, 27 (a few of the articles are ones I wrote regarding this and other 
Macintosh viruses...)


		   Good Luck....
			David

PS: If anyone else out there has seen Macintosh viruses, besides the "DR" (
Richard Brandow/MacMag virus), I would appreciate hearing about it.. I am 
trying to work up some stats on the spread and possible strategies for 
combating thses things...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David HM Spector				New York University
Senior Systems Programmer			Graduate School of Business
Arpa: SPECTOR@GBA.NYU.EDU			Academic Computing Center
UUCP:...!{allegra,rocky,harvard}!cmcl2!spector	90 Trinity Place, Rm C-4
MCIMail: DSpector				New York, New York 10006
AppleLink: D1161     CompuServe: 71260,1410     (212) 285-6080