anderson@Apple.COM (Clark Anderson) (06/06/90)
Posted on AppleLink today. Thought you all might be interested... --clark FROM: DESKTOP SERVICES Steroid Trojan Horse -------------------- There is a Trojan Horse called "Steroid". It is an INIT that claims to speed up QuickDraw on Macintosh computers with 9" screens. The INIT contains code that checks for the date being greater than June 6,1990. If it is, it will ERASE all mounted drives. I have performed some tests on a Macintosh SE. Having Comm Toolbox installed seemed to interfere with the INIT and keep the erase from happening. The SE simply crashed. I then installed the INIT on a floppy disk and booted the SE. The floppy and hard disk were promply erased. NOTE: I had set the date to 7/7/90. So far, we know that the code does the following: OPERATIONS AT RESTART: ---------------------- DATE & TIME CHECK (Loop) SYSENVIRONS CHECK GETS VOLUME INFORMATION (probably checking for HFS) GETS SOME ADRESSES (Toolbox traps) DOES SOME HFS DISPATCH OPERATIONS VOLUME IS REINITIALIZED to "Untitled" INFORMATION: ------------ TYPE: INIT CREATOR: qdac CODE SIZE: 1080 DATA SIZE: 267 ID: 148 Name: QuickDraw Accelorator File Name: " Steroid" (First 2 characters are ASCII 1) WHAT TO DO: ----------- If your disk becomes erased, you can use SUM II Disk Clinic to recover the deleted files. We have tried this and it seems to work. If you read this today, before June 6 1990, REMOVE the Steroid INIT from all disks IMMEDIATELY. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- Clark Anderson InterNet: anderson@apple.com CPU Engineering AppleLink: C.ANDERSON Apple Computer, Inc BellNet: 408-974-4593 "I speak only for myself, much to my employer's relief..." -------------------------------------------------------------
kazim@Apple.COM (Alex Kazim) (06/06/90)
In article <41653@apple.Apple.COM> anderson@Apple.COM (Clark Anderson) writes: >I have performed some tests on a Macintosh SE. Having Comm Toolbox installed >seemed to interfere with the INIT and keep the erase from happening. The SE Ah, yes, the double-secret-anti-virus-about-box. Yet another reason to use the CommToolbox. :-) ======================================================================== Alex Kazim, Apple Computer Did I state an opinion... ========================================================================