Newcom Virus

Virus Name: Newcom Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovered: July, 1991 Symptoms: .COM & .EXE growth; decrease in total system and available free memory Origin: Unknown Eff Length: 3,045 - 3,060 Bytes Type Code: PRhAK - Parasitic Resident .COM & .EXE Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, AVTK, F-Prot, Sweep, ChAV, IBMAV, NAV, NAVDX, VAlert, PCScan, NShld, Sweep/N, LProt, Innoc, NProt, IBMAV/N, AVTK/N, NAV/N Removal Instructions: Delete infected files General Comments: The Newcom virus was isolated in July, 1991. Its origin is unknown. Newcom is a memory resident infector of .COM and .EXE files, including COMMAND.COM. When the first program infected with Newcom is executed, the virus will install itself memory resident at the top of system memory but below the 640K DOS boundary. Total system and available free memory, as measured by the DOS CHKDSK program, will decrease by 3,312 bytes. Interrupts 1C and 21 are hooked by the virus. Interrupt 12's return is not moved. After becoming memory resident, Newcom will infect .COM and .EXE programs when they are executed. If COMMAND.COM is executed, it will become infected. Infected programs increase in size by 3,045 to 3,060 bytes with the virus being located at the end of the infected file. The file's date and time in the DOS disk directory will not be altered by the virus. It is unknown what Newcom does besides replicate. See: Alfa