home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
-
- How the user usually deals with Commander
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-
- The first wierd thing according to the user is that suddenly some of his
- programs won't work and/or the memory isn't set free after running a
- program has reserved it. Also some ASCII-chars in the WB-title-bar looks
- a bit different (like: all '0' is replaced with 'Ò' and wierd pixels
- appear in the top line of some chars).
-
-
- When the user tries to find out what is going on, getting maybe a
- directory either by using the "Dir" command from CLI or running
- DirectoryOpus, everything will seem normal, but - if the user is really
- paying attention - the size of free space on his HD. Depending on how
- long mysterious things has been going on, the empty room on the HD has
- gone smaller!
-
-
- At this time the user may have guessed that a virus has taken over the
- control. If not he'll probably try running some disk-repair-tool, and he
- will find that his Amiga freezes during the process. Afterwards he'll
- possibly run a virus-killer and depending on the extensiveness of it, this
- will either produce no result or the solution. If not...
-
-
- 'Panic' is now written in the users mind (if he hasn't recently backed up
- his HD). In frustration of nothing else to do he'll perhaps use the
- command: 'List' and find strang ': ' in the dirs right underneath the
- executable programs he has recently run. The ': ' means that the file
- listed just above has the comment ' ' (a single space). It may also accur
- to the user that all the files having this wierd comment has grown 1664
- bytes longer. And maybe 2 or 3 boots later not only almost all files in
- the C dir. but also other exe-files (maybe never run) is infected!!
-
-
-
- As far as I know the Commander-virus does following things:
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- When active the memory reserved by the executed prg.'s is not released.
-
-
- It infects all (by the user, - not necessarily from the Startup-sequence)
- executed files (e.g. the 'Dir' command), - later it also infects files
- not run.
-
-
- 'Infects' means:
- When executing a file (and Commander is active - in memory), the virus
- links with the size 1664 bytes to the file, thereby making itself executed
- (if not already active) next time the infected file is run (copying this
- single file to your friends disk and inserting it in his Amiga is enough
- to make his life a nightmare!). Commander deletes the existing comment on
- the file and puts in a singele space (' ') instead.
-
-
-
- Notes:
- ~~~~~~
- Wether it is software-destructive or not I don't know. The only things
- seeming somehow affecting the user is that it doesn't release
- unnecessarily reserved RAM, it deletes his comments, it make the files
- grow taking away free space from the HD/Disk and it makes some ASCII-chars
- appear different (not changing the actual font-file as far as I know).
-
-
-
-
- David A. Filskov
- Kornerups Vænge 6, 2.th
- 4000 Roskilde
- Tlf.: 4632-2799