                    Ŀ
                            VIRUS REPORT         
                                1536             
                    

Synonyms: Zero Bug.

Date of Origin: September, 1989.

Place of Origin: the Netherlands.

Host Machine: PC compatibles.

Host Files: Remains resident. Infects COM files.

OnScreen Symptoms: A smiley face character
     may appear on the screen and "eat" any 0's it can find.

Increase in Size of Infected Files: 1536 bytes.

Nature of Damage: Affects system run-time
     operation. Corrupts program or overlay files.

Detected by: Scanv38+, F-Prot

Removed by: CleanUp, Scan/D, F-Prot, or delete
     infected files.

     The Zero Bug virus was first isolated in the Netherlands by Jan
Terpstra in September, 1989. This virus is a memory resident .COM file
infector. Infected .COM files will increase in size by 1,536 bytes,
however the increase in file length will not show up when the disk
directory is displayed.

     The virus's main objective is to infect the copy of COMMAND.COM
indicated by the environment variable COMSPEC. If COMSPEC doesn't point
to anything, the Zero Bug virus will install itself memory resident
using INT 21h.

     After the virus has either infected COMMAND.COM or become memory
resident, it will infect all COM files that are accessed, including
those accessed by actions such as COPY or XCOPY. Any COM file created on
an infected system will also be infected.

     If the currently loaded COMMAND.COM is infected, the virus will hook
into the timer interrupt 1Ch, and after a certain amount of time has
past, a smiley face character (ASCII 01) will appear and eat all the
zeros it can find on the screen. The virus does not delete files or
format disks in its present form.


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  This document was adapted from the book "Computer Viruses",       
  which is copyright and distributed by the National Computer       
  Security Association. It contains information compiled from       
  many sources. To the best of our knowledge, all information       
  presented here is accurate.                                       
                                                                    
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            The document is copyright (c) 1990 NCSA.                
                                                                    
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