Reset Virus
Virus Name: Reset
Aliases: Omega, Friday-13th-440
V Status: Rare
Discovery: October, 1991
Symptoms: .COM file growth; Very long disk accesses
Origin: Unknown
Eff Length: 440 Bytes
Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method: ViruScan, Sweep, AVTK, F-Prot, ChAV,
NAV, IBMAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan,
NShld, LProt, Sweep/N, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N,
NAV/N, IBMAV/N
Removal Instructions: Delete infected files
General Comments:
The Reset virus was submitted in November, 1991. Its origin and
point of original discovery is unknown. This virus is a non-
resident, direct action infector of .COM files, including
COMMAND.COM.
When a program infected with the Reset virus is executed, the
virus will search the current drive's directory structure looking
for .COM programs to infect. Each uninfected .COM file encountered
will be infected by the virus. Once the virus has completed
infecting the current drive, it will search the C: drive in the
same manner. Since the virus searches the entire drive, a long
period of disk access will occur when the user attempts to execute
any infected programs.
Programs infected with the Reset virus will have increased in size
by 440 bytes. The virus will be located at the end of the infected
file. One text string can be found within the viral code in
infected programs: "*.COM".
Reset does not appear to do anything besides replicate.