AIW Virus

Virus Name: AIW Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovery: July, 1994 Symptoms: .COM file growth; file date/time changes decrease in total system & available free memory Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 572 Bytes Type Code: PRtC - Parasitic Resident .COM Infector Detection Method: F-Prot, AVTK, IBMAV, ViruScan, Sweep, NAVDX, VAlert, NAV, PCScan, Sweep/N, AVTK/N, NProt, IBMAV/N, NShld, NAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The AIW virus was received in July, 1994. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. AIW is a memory resident infector of .COM files, but not COMMAND.COM. When the first AIW infected program is executed, this virus will install itself memory resident at the top of system memory but below the 640K DOS boundary, moving interrupt 12's return. Total system and available free memory, as indicated by the DOS CHKDSK program, will have decreased by 2,048 bytes. Interrupt 21 will be hooked by the virus in memory. Once memory resident, the AIW virus will infect .COM programs when they are executed. Infected programs will have a file length increase of 572 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 altered to the current system date and time when infection occurred. The following text string can be found near the beginning of all AIW infected programs: "AIW2øJB"