Costeau Virus

Virus Name: Costeau Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovery: January, 1993 Symptoms: .EXE file growth Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 512 Bytes Type Code: PRE - Parasitic Resident .EXE Infector Detection Method: AVTK, F-Prot, Sweep, ViruScan, IBMAV, NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, ChAV, Sweep/N, NShld, AVTK/N, NProt, NAV/N, IBMAV/N, Innoc Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Costeau virus was submitted in January, 1993. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. Costeau is a memory resident infector of .EXE programs. When the first Costeau infected program is executed, the Costeau virus will install itself memory resident in the DOS Data area in memory, hooking interrupt 21. Total system and available free memory, as indicated by the DOS CHKDSK program, will not be altered. Once the Costeau virus is memory resident, it will infect .EXE programs when they are executed. Infected programs will have a file length increase of 512 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 can be found within the viral code in all Costeau infected programs: "COSTEAU" "End.MZ" It is unknown what Costeau may do besides replicate.