padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com (Padgett Peterson) (10/19/90)
We have just removed the STONED virus from a user's PC. What is unusual is that the user who discovered the infection reported that it appeared after accidently rebooting with a utility disk taken out of a sealed envelope that came with the motherboard. In checking the area, we found no other floppies containing the virus and on contacting the vendor, we were told that they had had other reports and were recalling the disk and providing removal software to anyone who had become infected. Salient facts: the disk came in a sealed envelope stamped "MCT-286" and having an imprint resembling a floppy disk over the opening flap. The imprint has 6 decimal digits in blue and what appear to be chinese characters in red. The disk inside has a professional label in silver and white with graphics & legends: "MODULAR CIRCUIT TECHNOLOGY", "Utility Diskette". This disk was not write-protected. Since this reportedly occurred immediately following an initial low level format on receipt of the hard disk and neither the DOS (used to format the drive) disk nor any of the other floppies in the area were infected, we have a strong certainty that the disk was infected prior to being received.