Alan_J_Roberts@cup.portal.com (08/09/90)
This is a forward from Aryeh Goretsky of the Computer Virus Industry Association: ================================================================ Note: Contact information from the following CVIA Membership Alert has been removed from the posting, but has been submitted separately to the Virus-L moderator. August 8, 1990 CVIA Membership Alert Originating Members: [Information Removed] Alert Type: Initial Infection Spread Library Entries: Joshi; 4096 Entry Types: "Stealth"; Boot infectors; File Infectors A widespread outbreak of the Joshi virus has been reported in the Detroit area. More than two dozen computer stores, small businesses and individual users have reported infections within the past three days. The virus is the "A" variety. The transmission vector into the Detroit area has not yet been determined, although some signs point to a national computer store chain. Many of the local retail outlets of this national chain have reported infections. This virus is spreading more rapidly than any previous virus that has been tracked by this organization. As a point of comparison, the Sunday virus (a relatively fast replicator) was in the public domain (U.S.) for more than eight months before it reached a point of consistent multiple daily reports. The Dark Avenger followed a similar course. The Joshi virus has been in the U.S. public domain for less than 45 days, and we are currently receiving more reports of this virus per day than for the Sunday and Dark Avenger combined. We cannot account for this anomaly. Perhaps it has something to do with being the first known "Stealth" partition table infector, or perhaps with an opportunistic event such as the high volume distribution of infected diskettes or hardware. In any case and alert is in order. An interim remover for the Joshi is available to liaison persons in the event an infection is detected. An August seventh report of the 4096 virus in Vermont marks the first CVIA reported occurrence of this virus in New England. We are continuing to receive multiple daily reports of this virus from geographic areas previously reported as affected. John McAfee 408 988 3832