Explorer Virus

Virus Name: Explorer Aliases: Explorer.3037 V Status: New Discovered: January, 1996 Symptoms: .EXE & .SYS growth; decrease in available free memory Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 3,037 Bytes Type Code: PRhES - Parasitic Resident .EXE & .SYS Infector Detection Method: AVTK, IBMAV, ViruScan, NAV, NAVDX, AVTK/N, IBMAV/N, NShld, NAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Explorer virus was received in January, 1996. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. Explorer is a memory resident infector of .EXE and .SYS files. When the first Explorer infected program is executed, this virus will install itself memory resident at the top of system memory but below the 640K DOS boundary, not moving interrupt 12's return. Available free memory, as indicated by the DOS CHKDSK program from DOS 5.0, will have decreased by 3,200 bytes. Interrupt 21 will be hooked by the virus in memory. Also at this time, the virus may infect the first .SYS file found in the current directory. Once the Explorer virus is memory resident, it will infect .EXE files when they are executed. Infected files will have a file length increase of 3,037 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 not be altered. The following text strings are encrypted within the viral code: "The 21st Space Explorer