Star Virus

Virus Name: Star Aliases: Star.486 V Status: New Discovered: July, 1995 Symptoms: .COM file growth; file date/time changes Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 486 Bytes Type Code: PRaC - Parasitic Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: F-Prot, AVTK, VAlert, Sweep, IBMAV, ViruScan, NAV, NAVDX, PCScan, ChAV, Sweep/N, IBMAV/N, NShld, AVTK/N, NAV/N, Innoc 4.0+ Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Star or Star.486 virus was received in July, 1995. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. Star is a memory resident infector of .COM files, but not COMMAND.COM. It is unknown what it may do besides replicate. When the first Star infected program is executed, this virus will install itself memory resident in allocated system memory. The amount of memory indicated for total system memory and available free memory by the DOS CHKDSK program will not be altered. Interrupt 21 will be hooked by the virus in memory. Once the Star virus is memory resident, it will infect .COM programs, but not COMMAND.COM, when they are executed. Infected .COM files will have a file length increase of 486 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 infection occurred. The following text string can be found at the end of all infected files: "STAR5"