Honey Virus
Virus Name: Honey
Aliases: Honey.666
V Status: Rare
Discovered: September, 1993
Symptoms: .COM file growth; message displayed; file date/time changes
Origin: Unknown
Eff Length: 666 Bytes
Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method: ViruScan, F-Prot, AVTK, IBMAV, Sweep,
NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV,
AVTK/N, NShld, Sweep/N, NProt, IBMAV/N, Innoc, NAV/N
Removal Instructions: Delete infected files
General Comments:
The Honey virus was submitted in September, 1993. Its origin is
unknown, but it is probably from the United States. Honey is a
non-resident, direct action infector of .COM programs, including
COMMAND.COM.
When a program infected with the Honey virus is executed, the Honey
virus will infect one .COM program located in the current directory.
Infected programs will have a file length increase of 666 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 have been updated to
the current system date and time when infection occurred. The
following text strings are visible within the viral code in all Honey
infected programs:
"*.COM C:\ . ANTI-VIR.DAT .. DOS"
"Honey, I'm home . . ."
"Earl Sinclair"
"\CODE\WORK"
"TSTS"
The "Honey, I'm home . . ." string is the greeting used by the
"Earl Sinclair" character in the "Dinosaurs" television program from
1992 and 1993. The virus will sometimes display these two strings
as a message when an infected program is executed.
Known variant(s) of Honey are:
Honey.1027: Received in July, 1995, this is a 1,027 byte variant
of the Honey virus described above. It infects one .COM file
in the current directory when an infected program is executed.
Infected programs will have a file length increase of 1,027
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
have been updated to the current system date and time when
infection occurred. The following text strings are visible
within the viral code in all infected programs:
"!*+.ICOONMI"
"HELLO!C:\ . ANTI-VIR.DAT .. DOS"
"Honey, I'm home (again) . . ."
"Earl Sinclair"
"DINO IV strikes again . . . GOD this really cracks me up!"
"This comes with much love from the Carnal Cathedral (headed
by T.S.)"
Origin: Unknown July, 1995.