Viperize Virus
Virus Name: Viperize
Aliases:
V Status: Rare
Discovered: April, 1992
Symptoms: .COM file growth
Origin: Unknown
Eff Length: 934 Bytes
Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method: ViruScan, F-Prot, Sweep, AVTK, ChAV,
NAV, IBMAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan,
NShld, Sweep/N, LProt, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N, IBMAV/N,
NAV/N
Removal Instructions: Delete infected files
General Comments:
The Viperize virus was submitted in April, 1992. Its origin is
unknown. Viperize is a non-resident direct action infector of
.COM programs, including COMMAND.COM. It is based on the Vienna
virus.
When a program infected with Viperize is executed, the Viperize
virus will infect one .COM program located in the current
directory. Infected programs will have a file length increase of
934 bytes with the virus being located at the end of the file.
The seconds in the program's timestamp in the disk directory will
have been set to 62. The following text strings can be found within
the Viperize viral code in infected programs:
"*.COM"
"PATH="
"????????COM"
Viperize activates on a random basis, at which time it will
display the following message:
"THE VIPERIZE VIRUS STRAIN A
(c) 1992, STINGRAY / VIPER
WITH AFFECTION TO BRENDA M.G.
ONE OF THESE DAYS, YOU'LL BE MINE!
AND -YOU- WILL FRY. FUCK YOU MCAFEEE."
The virus may also corrupt the current drive's file allocation
table and hang the system when the message is displayed.
Known variant(s) of Viperize are:
Viperize-B: Functionally similar to the original virus, this
variant has two bytes which have been altered.
Origin: Unknown July, 1992.
See: Generic Vienna