Virus-90 Virus

Virus Name: Virus-90 Aliases: V Status: Research Discovered: December, 1989 Symptoms: .COM growth; TSR Origin: District of Columbia, United States Eff Length: 857 bytes Type Code: PRC - Parasitic Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, F-Prot, AVTK, Sweep, IBMAV, ChAV, NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, NShld, LProt, Sweep/N, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N, NAV/N, IBMAV/N Removal Instructions: F-Prot, or delete infected files General Comments: The Virus-90 virus was originally distributed in December, 1989 by Patrick Toulme as an "educational tool", with the virus source also available for sale. In January, 1990, the author contacted the sites where he had uploaded the virus requesting that they remove it from their systems, his having decided a live virus was not a "good idea" for an educational tool after being contacted by several viral authorities. The following description was submitted by Patrick Toulme in November 1990 for inclusion in this listing: "This educational, research virus was written by Patrick Toulme to aid developers in understanding direct-virus action and in creating virus-resistant software. This virus is a simple COM infector that will not infect a hard drive and advises the user when a file on a floppy disk is to be infected. Of course, no damage occurs from the virus and all infected files advise the user of the infection upon execution. The safeguards provided by the author prevent accidental infection and the disassembly of the code is extremely difficult. Upon request from the anti-viral community, Virus-90 is now only available to approved anti-virus researchers." See: Virus-101