July 26TH Virus

Virus Name: July 26TH Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovered: September, 1992 Symptoms: .COM file growth; file date/time changes; overwrites current drive on July 26th Origin: Italy Eff Length: 205 Bytes Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, Sweep, AVTK, F-Prot, IBMAV, NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, NShld, Sweep/N, AVTK/N, NProt, IBMAV/N, NAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The July 26TH virus was received in September, 1992. From its original submission, it appears to have been isolated in Italy. This virus is a non-resident direct action infector of .COM programs, including COMMAND.COM. It is destructive when it activates on July 26th of any year. When a program infected with the July 26TH virus is executed, this virus will infect all of the .COM programs located in the current directory. If COMMAND.COM is located in this directory, it will become infected. Programs infected with the July 26TH virus will have a file length increase of 205 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. One text string is visible in the viral code in infected programs: "*.COM" The July 26TH virus activates when an infected program is executed on July 26th of any year. At that time, the virus will overwrite the current drive, rendering it inaccessible.