V2000 Virus
Virus Name: V2000
Aliases: Dark Avenger II, Stealth Virus, Travel Virus, Eddie 2000,
Apocalypse II
V Status: Rare
Discovered: 1989
Symptoms: TSR; .COM, .EXE, .OV? growth (see text); crashes;
cross-linked files following CHKDSK.
Origin: Bulgaria
Eff Length: 2,000 Bytes
Type Code: PRA - Parasitic Resident .COM & .EXE Infector
Detection Method: ViruScan, AVTK, NAV, F-Prot, Sweep, IBMAV,
NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV,
NShld, LProt, Sweep/N, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N,
NAV/N, IBMAV/N
Removal Instructions: NAV, or delete infected files
General Comments:
The V2000, or Dark Avenger II, virus is a memory resident generic
file infector. The first isolated samples of this virus were
received from Bulgaria, where it was isolated by Daniel Kalchev and
Niki Spahiev.
V2000 will infect .COM, .EXE, and Overlay files, as well as
COMMAND.COM. When the first infected file is executed, the virus
installs itself memory resident, and then infected COMMAND.COM if
it has not already been infected. Then, when an executable file is
opened for any reason, it is infected if it hasn't been previously
infected.
Increased file lengths will not be shown if the V2000 virus is
present in memory when a DIR command is issued. Issuing a CHKDSK
/F command on infected systems may result in cross-linking of files
since the directory information may not appear to match the entries
in the file allocation table (FAT).
Systems infected with the V2000 virus will experience unexpected
system crashes, resulting in lost data. Some systems may also
become unbootable due to the modification of COMMAND.COM or the
hidden system files.
One of the following two text strings will appear in the viral code
in infected files, thus accounting for the alias of Travel virus
used in Bulgaria:
"Zopy me - I want to travel"
"Copy me - I want to travel"
There are reports from Bulgaria that the V2000 virus looks for and
hangs the system if programs written by Vesselin Bontchev are
attempted to be executed. This would explain the presence of the
following copyright notice within the viral code:
"(c) 1989 by Vesselin Bontchev"
Known variant(s) of V2000 are:
V2000-B: (Die Young) Similar to the V2000 virus, the main
difference is that the text string "Zopy me - I want to
travel" is now "Only the Good die young..." or "Mnly the
Good die young..." and the encryption used by the virus is
different. This variant is actually the original virus,
predating V2000.
Apocalypse II: Apocalypse II was received from Europe in May,
1991. It is similar to V2000 and V2000-B, the
major change being that it no longer crashes
the system, and the text string "Zopy me - I want
to travel" is now "Apocalypse II begin!!". This
variant also modifies the boot sector, but not with
an infectious copy of the virus.
See: Dark Avenger V651 V1024