Seventh Son Virus
Virus Name: Seventh Son
Aliases: 7th Son, Seventh Son-284, Seventh Son-350
V Status: Rare
Discovered: October, 1991
Isolated: The Netherlands
Symptoms: .COM file growth
Origin: Eastern Europe
Eff Length: 284 or 350 Bytes, depending on variant
Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method: ViruScan, Sweep, F-Prot, IBMAV, ChAV,
AVTK, NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan,
NShld, Sweep/N, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N, NAV/N,
LProt, IBMAV/N
Removal Instructions: Delete infected files
General Comments:
The Seventh Son virus is actually two viruses which are similar in
behavior which were isolated in the Netherlands in October, 1991.
They are believed to have actually originated in Eastern Europe.
The Seventh Son viruses are direct action infectors of .COM
programs, including COMMAND.COM.
When a program infected with a Seventh Son virus is executed, the
Seventh Son virus will search the current drive and directory for
uninfected .COM files to infect. Each uninfected .COM file
encountered will be infected with the virus. Infected .COM
programs will increase in size by either 284 or 350 bytes, depending
on which of the Seventh Son viruses has infected the system.
There will be no change in the file's date and time in the DOS
disk directory. The following text strings can be found within
infected programs:
"Seventh son of a seventh son"
"*.COM"
Seventh Son does not appear to do anything besides replicate.
Known variant(s) of Seventh Son are:
Seventh Son-284: Seventh Son-284 is a 284 byte version of this
virus.
Seventh Son-332: Seventh Son-332 is a 332 byte virus based on
the Seventh Son virus. It infects all .COM programs
in the current directory when an infected program is
executed. Infected programs will have a file length
increase of 332 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 strings found in the original
Seventh Son viruses are also found in this variant.
Origin: The Netherlands December, 1992.
Seventh Son.334: Seventh Son.334 is a 334 byte virus based on
the Seventh Son virus. It infects all .COM programs
in the current directory when an infected program is
executed. Infected programs will have a file length
increase of 334 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 following text strings are visible
within the viral code in all infected files:
"Seventh son of a seventh son"
"*.COM"
Origin: Unknown June, 1996.
Seventh Son-350: Seventh Son-350 is a 350 byte version of this
virus.
Seventh Son.426: Seventh Son.426 is a 426 byte virus based on
the Seventh Son virus. It infects all .COM programs
in the current directory when an infected program is
executed. Infected programs will have a file length
increase of 426 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 following text strings are visible
within the viral code in all infected files:
"ARBEIT MACHT FREI!"
"The Unforgiven / Immortal Riot Sweden 01/10/93"
"*.COM"
Origin: Sweden April, 1994.
Seventh Son.440: Seventh Son.440 is a 449 byte virus based on
the Seventh Son virus. It infects all .COM programs
in the current directory when an infected program is
executed. Infected programs will have a file length
increase of 440 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 following text strings are visible
within the viral code in all infected files:
"SiGVE v1.0 TP4 Compilation!"
"c:\"
"*.COM"
"command.com"
Origin: Unknown January, 1996.
Seventh Son-473: Seventh Son-473 is a 473 byte virus based on
the Seventh Son virus. It infects all .COM programs
in the current directory when an infected program is
executed. Infected programs will have a file length
increase of 473 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 following text strings are visible
within the viral code in all infected files:
"Fight Fire With Fire..."
"*.COM"
"Soon to fill our lungs the hot winds of death"
"The gods are laughing, so take your last breath"
"Immortal Riot..Death Greets me warm.."
Origin: Unknown August, 1993.
Seventh Son.473.B: Functionally equivalent to the Seventh Son-473
variant, this variant has three bytes which differ.
Origin: Unknown July, 1994.
Seventh Son-Kernel: Seventh Son-Kernel, or Kernel, is a 610
byte virus based on the Seventh Son virus. This
virus becomes memory resident at the top of system
memory but below the 640K DOS boundary when the
first infected program is executed, decreasing
total system and available free memory by 8,448
bytes. It hooks interrupt 21. Once resident, it
will infect .COM programs when they are executed.
Infected programs will have a file length
increase of 610 to 624 bytes with the virus
being located at the end of the file. There will
be no change to the file's date and time in the
DOS disk directory listing. One text string can
be found within the viral code in all infected
files:
"KERNEL"
Origin: Unknown July, 1992.