Feist Virus

Virus Name: Feist Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovered: January, 1992 Symptoms: .COM & .EXE growth; file date/time changes; unexpected error messages Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 670 Bytes Type Code: PRfAK - Parasitic Resident .COM & .EXE Infector Detection Method: Sweep, ViruScan, F-Prot, AVTK, ChAV, NAV, IBMAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, NShld, LProt, Sweep/N, Innoc, NProt, AVTK/N, NAV/N, IBMAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Feist virus was received in January, 1992. Its origin or point of original isolation is unknown. Feist is a memory resident infector of .COM and .EXE programs, including COMMAND.COM. The first time a program infected with the Feist virus is executed, this virus will install itself memory resident in free available memory. As such, there will be no change to total system and available free memory. Interrupt 21 will be hooked by the virus. Once the Feist virus is memory resident, it will infect .COM and .EXE programs when they are executed. Infected programs will have a file length increase of 670 bytes with the virus being located at the end of the infected file. The program's date and time in the DOS disk directory will have been updated to the current system date and time. The following text string can be found within the viral code in all Feist infected programs: "R.Feist" Systems infected with the Feist virus may experience unexpected errors when attempting to execute programs. These errors include, but are not limited to, divide overflow errors and data errors reading or writing to the current drive.