Demon Viper Virus

Virus Name: Demon Viper Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovered: March, 1993 Symptoms: .COM file growth; file date/time changes; programs fail to function properly; jumbled characters may appear on display Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 817 Bytes Type Code: PNCK - Parasitic Non-Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, F-Prot, AVTK, Sweep, ChAV, NAV, IBMAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, NShld, NProt, Sweep/N, NAV/N, AVTK/N, IBMAV/N, Innoc, LProt Removal Instructions: Delete infected programs General Comments: The Demon Viper virus was submitted in March, 1993. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. Demon Viper is a non-resident, direct action infector of .COM programs, including COMMAND.COM. When a program infected with the Demon Viper virus is executed, the Demon Viper virus will infect one .COM program located in the current or next higher level directory. Infected programs will have a file length increase of 817 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 have been updated to the current system date and time when infection occurred. The following text strings are encrypted within the Demon Viper viral code in all infected programs: "May SATAN prevail on this system!" "I summon you!" "DEMON! ver" "by Viper!" "*.COM .." Systems infected with the Demon Viper virus may experience unexpected results when infected .COM programs are executed, including garbled characters from memory being displayed on the system monitor and program execution failure.