This program scans your local drives for the AutoStart 9805, AutoStart 9805-B, and AutoStart 9805-C worms. It is based on published descriptions of the activities of these worms. It has not been tested on live worms.
When WormScanner finds a known worm files, it will automatically delete the file, if possible. If it is not possible to delete the file, for instance if it is an application that is actually running, then WormScanner will attempt to make it visible and move it to the trash. When suspicious files (autostart applications and invisible extensions) are found, you will be asked whether to delete them or not. Bear in mind that these suspicious files might have been installed by commercial software for innocent purposes, although I personally have difficulty imagining a legitimate purpose for making an extension invisible.
Worms may lurk inside disk image files, but unless the disk image is mounted, WormScanner will not be able to look inside.
WormScanner is copyrighted freeware, and may be distributed freely as long as it is unaltered. Updates, if any, may be found at the author’s home page: <http://members.aol.com/jwwalker/>.
WormScanner requires Color QuickDraw, meaning that it will not run on machines that use the original 68000 processor. However, the known autostart worms only affect PowerPC Macintoshes, so this limitation should not be a big problem.
Version 1.0.1 changes:
• When a file cannot be deleted, WormScanner attempts to make it visible and move it to the trash.
• When running on a Japanese system, the transcript text will be in the Osaka font rather than Geneva, for proper display of Japanese file and folder names.
• When there is an application that has the name of a known worm at root level of one of the disks, but it is not set to auto-start, you will be asked whether to delete it.
• Added a note icon to the alert box that appears when you get a choice of whether to delete something.
