Rider Virus

Virus Name: Rider Aliases: Rider.577 V Status: Rare Discovery: August, 1994 Symptoms: .COM file growth; C: drive system files may be deleted Origin: Norway Eff Length: 577 Bytes Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: AVTK, NAV, IBMAV, Sweep, ViruScan, F-Prot, NAVDX, VAlert, ChAV, AVTK/N, Sweep/N, IBMAV/N, NShld, NAV/N, NProt, Innoc 4.0+ Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Rider virus was received in August, 1994, and appears to be from Norway. It is a non-resident, direct action infector of .COM files, including COMMAND.COM. When a program infected with the Rider virus is executed, this virus will infect one .COM file located in the current directory. Infected programs will have a file length increase of 577 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 not be altered. The following text strings are encrypted within the Rider viral code: "The iNFiLtRAtOR Virus by The Dark Rider from Norway-93" "*.COM .." "C:\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\IO.SYS C:\MSDOS.SYS" The Rider virus will delete the files indicated in the third text string above, which results in the system failing to boot from the system hard disk. To result this problem, the user must boot from an uninfected, write protected system disk, and then replace the files using the DOS SYS command, and copying COMMAND.COM to the C: drive root and DOS directories. Known variant(s) of Rider are: Rider.575: Received in January, 1996, this is a 575 byte variant of the Rider virus described above. It infects one .COM file in the current directory when an infected program is executed, increasing the host program's size by 575 bytes. The virus will be located at the end of the file and the program's date and time in the DOS disk directory listing will not be altered. The following text strings are encryted within the viral code: "The iNFiLtRAtOR Virus by The Dark Rider from Norway-93" "*.COM.." "C:\COMMAND. C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\IO.SYS C:\MSDOS.SYS" As with the original virus, this variant deletes the files indicated in the third text string above, resulting in the system failing to boot from the system hard disk. Origin: Norway January, 1996.