Explode Virus

Virus Name: Explode Aliases: V Status: Viron Discovered: May, 1992 Symptoms: .COM files overwritten; program corruption; file date/time change; message & overwriting of hard disk cylinder 0; boot failure Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 229 Bytes Type Code: ONCK - Overwriting Non-Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, NAV, AVTK, F-Prot, Sweep, IBMAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV, Sweep/N, NShld, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N, LProt, IBMAV/N, NAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Explode virus was received in May, 1992. Its origin is unknown. Explode is a non-resident, overwriting virus which is very destructive when it activates. When a program infected with the Explode virus is executed, this virus will overwrite the first 229 bytes of all .COM files located in the current drive's current directory. It will also access the C: drive, overwriting cylinder 0 with binary zeros. Once this process has completed, the following message is displayed and the system will be hung: "Your hard drive is about to explode!" Attempts to then boot from the system hard disk or an infected diskette will fail. If the system is booted from an uninfected system diskette, the boot will be successful, but the hard disk will be unaccessible. Programs infected with the Explode virus will have the first 229 bytes of the host program overwritten with the Explode viral code. The file's date and time in the DOS disk directory will have been updated to the current system date and time when infection occurred. The following text strings are visible within infected programs: "*.COM Your hard drive is about to explode!" "Program too big to fit in memory." "UABBS -/\-] Ajax [-/\-"