Parity Virus

Virus Name: Parity Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovered: December, 1990 Symptoms: .COM file growth; long .COM program loads; possibly intermittent parity errors Origin: Bulgaria Eff Length: 441 Bytes Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, AVTK, F-Prot, NAV, Sweep, IBMAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV, NShld, LProt, Sweep/N, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N, NAV/N, IBMAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Parity virus was received in December, 1990, and originated in Bulgaria. This virus is a non-memory resident infector of .COM files, and will infect COMMAND.COM. When a program infected with the Parity virus is executed, the virus will infect all .COM files in the current directory. If COMMAND.COM is in the current directory, it will become infected. Infected .COM programs will increase in length by 441 bytes, the virus being located at the end of the infected program. The program's date and time in the disk directory will not be altered by the virus. The major symptom of a Parity virus infection is that it will take significantly longer to load and execute infected .COM files. The increase in time is due to the virus searching the current drive for .COM files to infect. This virus may also display a message "PARITY CHECK 2" at times, and halt the system.