Mercenary Virus

Virus Name: Mercenary Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovered: September, 1993 Symptoms: .COM file growth; decrease in total system & available free memory Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 854 Bytes Type Code: PRhCK - Parasitic Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, IBMAV, Sweep, NAV, AVTK, F-Prot, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, ChAV, AVTK/N, NShld, Sweep/N, NAV/N, NProt, AVTK/N, IBMAV/N, Innoc Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Mercenary virus was submitted in September, 1993. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. Mercenary is a memory resident infector of .COM programs, including COMMAND.COM. When the first Mercenary infected program is executed, this virus will install itself memory resident at the top of system memory but below the 640K DOS boundary, not moving interrupt 12's return. Total system and available free memory, as indicated by the DOS CHKDSK program, will have decreased by 7,040 bytes. Interrupt 21 will be hooked by Mercenary in memory. Once the Mercenary virus is memory resident, it will infect .COM programs, including COMMAND.COM, when they are executed. Infected files will have a file length increase of 854 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 Mercenary viral code, and are not visible within infected programs: "Mercenry Virii V.1 written by Lupus Yonderboy" "Greets to all of Phalcon / Skism (who don't know i exist)" "Welcome to the wonderful world of VIRII" "You are now in possession of the Mercenry Virii." "By Lupus Yonderboy" "Chaos Mr. Who." "That is our mode and modus" "Hail to the Succubi"