Piter-1228 Virus

Virus Name: Piter-1228 Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovery: March, 1993 Symptoms: .COM & .EXE growth; file date/time changed to 0-00-83 12:05a decrease in total system & available free memory Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 1,228 Bytes Type Code: PRhAK - Parasitic Resident .COM & .EXE Infector Detection Method: F-Prot, IBMAV, NAV, Sweep, AVTK, ViruScan, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV, Sweep/N, NShld, NProt, AVTK/N, NAV/N, IBMAV/N, Innoc, LProt Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Piter-1228 virus was submitted in March, 1993. Its origin is unknown. Piter-1228 is a memory resident infector of .COM and .EXE programs, including COMMAND.COM. When the first Piter-1228 infected program is executed, this virus will install itself memory resident at the top of system memory but below the 640K DOS boundary, hooking interrupts 09 and 21. Interrupt 12's return will not be moved. Total system and available free memory, as indicated by the DOS CHKDSK program, will have been decreased by 1,376 bytes. Once the Piter-1228 virus is memory resident, it will infect .COM and .EXE programs, including COMMAND.COM, when they are executed. Infected programs will have a file length increase of 1,228 bytes with the virus being located at the end of the file. The file's date and time in the DOS disk directory listing will have been altered to the value "0-00-83 12:05a". The following text strings are visible within the Piter-1228 viral code in infected files: "Recommendation for restart make use of RESET" "Piter" It is unknown what Piter-1228 may do besides replicate.