CHESS@YKTVMV.BITNET (David.M.Chess) (11/14/90)
We've recently seen our first Stoned-infected 3.5" diskette. This may not be a new thing to everyone else, but it was to us! Since the Stoned only infects diskettes used in the A: drive, and since the first infected diskette in the world was (presumably) a 5.25" diskette, it took the virus awhile to get to 3.5" diskettes: one or more rather unusual events was required for it to get across the line (for instance, a machine with a 5.25" A: disk might have been booted from an infected floppy, infecting the hard disk, and the A: drive was then changed to a 3.5" drive, allowing the virus to spread from the hard disk onto 3.5" media; there are probably other possible channels I haven't thought of). Since the Stoned has been one of the more common viruses recently, on 5.25" disks, it probably has the potential to spread widely in the 3.5" population as well. So I thought I'd mention it... DC