Polifemo Virus
Virus Name: Polifemo
Aliases: Polifemo.906
V Status: Rare
Discovered: July, 1994
Symptoms: .COM file growth; file date/time changes
Origin: Unknown
Eff Length: 906 Bytes
Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method: F-Prot, AVTK, IBMAV, ViruScan, Sweep,
NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV,
Sweep/N, IBMAV/N, AVTK/N, NShld, NProt, NAV/N, LProt,
Innoc 4.0+
Removal Instructions: Delete infected files
General Comments:
The Polifemo virus was received in July, 1994. Its origin or point of
isolation is unknown. Polifemo is a non-resident, direct action
infector of .COM programs, including COMMAND.COM.
When a program infected with the Polifemo virus is executed, this
virus will infect two .COM programs located in the current directory.
Programs infected with the Polifemo virus will have a file length
increase of 906 bytes with the virus being located at the end of the
file. The program's date and time in the DOS disk directory listing
will have been updated to the current system date and time when the
infection occurred. The following text string is visible within the
viral code in all Polifemo infected programs:
"**** Polifemo ****"
Known variant(s) of Polifemo are:
Polifemo.736: Received in July, 1995, this is a 736 byte variant
of the Polifemo virus described above. Like the original virus,
it infects two .COM files in the current directory when an
infected program is executed. Infected programs will have a
file length increase of 736 bytes with the virus being located
at the end of the file. The program's date and time in the DOS
disk directory listing will not be altered. The text string
from the original virus also occurs in this variant.
Origin: Unknown July, 1995.