Mich II Virus
Virus Name: Mich II
Aliases: Michelangelo II
V Status: Rare
Discovered: July, 1993
Symptoms: .COM file growth; TSR; beeping, message, & system hang
Origin: United States
Eff Length: 924 Bytes
Type Code: PRsC - Parasitic Resident .COM Infector
Detection Method: ViruScan, F-Prot, AVTK, Sweep, IBMAV, NAV,
NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV,
NShld, NProt, Sweep/N, IBMAV/N, AVTK/N, NAV/N, LProt,
Innoc 4.0+
Removal Instructions: Delete infected programs
General Comments:
The Mich II virus was received in July, 1993, and is from the
United States. Mich II is a memory resident infector of .COM
programs, but not COMMAND.COM. Its name is derived from the
text within the virus which is displayed on Marth 6th of any
year.
When the first Mich II infected program is executed, this virus
will install itself memory resident as a low system memory TSR
of 1,488 bytes. It will have hooked interrupts 21 and 2F. Also
at this time, the virus will display the following message:
"Bad command or file name"
Once memory resident, Mich II will infect one .COM file in the
target directory each time a DOS DIR command is issued. Infected
programs will have a file length increase of 924 bytes with the
virus being located at the beginning 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
Mich II viral code:
"It is March 6th, time for MICHELANGELO ][ to trigger."
"YES! Another one. This virus is brought to you by:"
"CRYPT KEEPER. HAVE PHUN"
"*.COM COMMAND.COMIBMBIO.COMIBMDOS.COM"
"Bad command or file name"
On March 6th of any year, when the first infected program is executed
without Mich II being memory resident, the first three lines of text
strings above are displayed as a message on the system display. This
message is accompanied by beeping, and a system hang will also occur.