Simple Minds Virus

Virus Name: Simple Minds Aliases: V Status: Viron Discovered: December, 1992 Symptoms: .COM programs overwritten; file date/time changes; programs do not execute properly; message Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 207 Bytes Type Code: ONCK - Overwriting Non-Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, AVTK, F-Prot, IBMAV, Sweep, NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV, NShld, AVTK/N, Sweep/N, NAV/N, IBMAV/N, Innoc, LProt Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Simple Minds virus was submitted in December, 1992. Simple Minds is a non-resident, direct action overwriting virus which infects .COM programs, including COMMAND.COM. When a program infected with the Simple Minds virus is executed, the Simple Minds virus will infect all of the .COM programs located in the current directory. Once it has completed infecting all of the .COM files, it will display the following message, returning the user to the DOS prompt: "A vir 4 da simple minded people of the earth Since ya didn't notice dis vir.. YAR LAME...." Programs infected with the Simple Minds virus will have the first 207 bytes of the host program overwritten by the Simple Minds viral code. Since the first 207 bytes of the host program are not saved by the program, host programs are permanently corrupted. The program's will have no file length increase unless the program was originally smaller than 207 bytes, in which case they will become 207 bytes in length. The program's date and time in the DOS disk directory listing will have been updated to the current system date and time. Besides the above message, the following text string is encrypted within the viral code in Simple Minds infected programs: "*.COM" Systems infected with Simple Minds will fail to boot once the boot copy of COMMAND.COM becomes infected.