padgett%tccslr.dnet@mmc.com (A. Padgett Peterson) (06/04/91)
>One of our users here at Eastern Illinois has discovered the Hong Kong >virus on the distribution disks included with Micro Tough's TVGA >board. This board is a MS-Windows enhancer Trident chip graphics >board. The disk are labeled TVGA-8916 (disks one - three). The "Hong Kong" is the name Central Point Software has chosen to use for the AZUSA virus previously reported in Dayton on Trident TVGA disks. It becomes memory resident on boot and has a counter that typically after 32 boots will zero the interrupt addresses of COM1 and LPT1 in the system data area casusing access to these peripherals to fail. CHKDSK will also report something less than 640k (655360 total bytes memory) available to DOS. More importantly, this is the THIRD time that Trident's distribution disks have been reported in connection with infected boot sectors. (Packard Bell SVGA - Dec,90; TVGA disks in May) & points out the need for something more that just a warning. Other manufacturers have accidently introduced viruses before but most have instituted policies to avoid ever doing it again. (IMHO) an investigation should be launched to determine just what is going on, to determine why this has occured, and to try to ensure that it is not repeated. It has been mentioned before but (IMHO) what is needed is a national computer integrity laboratory organized to become a clearing house for viral information (to avoid AZUSA/Hong Kong & Jerusalem/1813 confusion in the future), to provide a testing mechanism for the effective *weighted* evaluation of anti-virus products, and to inspect/certify manufacturers procedures for preventing future virus disseminations. This would have to created as a disassociated not-for-profit organization to have any meaning, we seen several commercial attempts already, but is something that is needed. However, it would take resources to establish so if any of the Virus-L members know of grants available or manufacturers who would be willing to make equipment available to set up such an organization, (my den closet is not big enough) please let me know. Hotly, Padgett Somewhere west of Orlando These views are my own, most likely no one else would want them.