[comp.virus] Basic Virus Questions

aduva@guvax.BITNET (Andrew R. D'Uva) (08/18/89)

After hearing quite a bit about viruses, particularly the Internet
'Worm' of November, 1988, I have a few questions concerning prevention
of virus infiltration on IBM PCs/clones using MS-DOS 3.3x or 4.01.

1) Is the possibility of virus infection limited to executable
   programs (.com or .exe extensions)? Or can an operating system be
   infected from reading a document file or graphic image?

2) Are there generic "symptoms" to watch for which would indicate a virus?

3) Any suggestions on guidelines for handling system archiving
   procedures so that an infected system can be "cleaned up"?

   Thanks for the help.

   Andrew D'Uva
   Jnet--->           ADUVA@GUVAX
   Internet--->       ADUVA@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU