CCTR132@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Nick FitzGerald) (12/18/90)
In V3 #202 Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond wrote: >WARNING: Stoned virus found on demo disk included "WHAT PERSONAL >COMPUTER" (United Kingdom) issue 18, Jan 1991. > >The demo disk is called Mega-Disk, and contains a working demo version >of Domark's MIG-29 Fulcrum. I am not sure that the disk was actually >infected from the factory, but I suspect it since 2 machines on which >the disk was run were actually infected, and the disk was found to be ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >infected as well. What does this mean?? STONED (as we keep saying) is a boot-sector infector. If you mean that these machines were *booted* from a non-tested disk, and it infected the machines with a boot-sector virus, then thanks for the warning. (Also, it may seem callous, but it serves you right.) If you mean that you ran the demo program from the disks without re-booting then you obviously haven't been reading the digest/group for a couple of weeks. If you ran the demo program and *subsequently* found that your PC's were STONED, then you didn't get the infection off the demo disk - your PC's were already infected and running the demo's was enough for the demo disks to become infected. If this is what happened then thanks for nothing - you are just increasing the hysteria. Also, you should read Hoffman's Virus Summary List, or the documentation that comes with the popular virus scanning/disinfecting programs to get a better understanding of how certain virii work. You cannot get a boot-sector infector virus fron running an executable (possibility of trojan "implanting" prog excepted - none known of). >I would therefore suggest that any buyer of WHAT PERSONAL COMPUTER >magazine checks for viruses on the disk, even though the disk is >certified by the magazine as being VIRUS-FREE. You wouldn't do this anyway?? There is no such thing as being too careful. We just received a couple of software updates from "reputable" vendors. First thing we did was run them through our virus scanners. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nick FitzGerald, PC Applications Consultant, CSC, Uni of Canterbury, N.Z. Internet: n.fitzgerald@csc.canterbury.ac.nz Phone: (64)(3) 642-337