Workbench virus

So far, Amiga public domain software has been free of a phenomena common to
other computers.  There is a class of programs known as "Trojan horses" or
"viruses".  When run on your computer, they cause some form of insidious
damage.  The Amiga now has a virus.  This type of program is called a
"virus" because of the way it replicates and transfers itself to other
disks, like the way a cold is spread by shaking hands. 

A European group called SCA claims responsibility for this.  It is yet
unknown what the virus does.  An examination of the virus code shows the
message "Something wonderful has happened.  Your AMIGA is alive!  And, even
better, some of your disks are infected by a VIRUS!"  There have been one
or two reports of this message being printed at random times, but no
confirmed reports of any damage done to disks.

The virus is spread from computer to computer via an infected Workbench 
boot disk.  If you start your Amiga with an infected disk, then the virus
is transfered into memory.  The virus survives a warm boot, that is, a
restart of the Amiga by the "Vulvan nerve pinch", also known as
CTRL-Amiga-Amiga.  Any Workbench disk used to boot an infected Amiga will
"catch" the virus if the write-protect tab is closed.

If you warm-boot with any Workbench after your computer has been
"infected," then the virus will be copied to that new disk.  Of course,
booting with that disk at a later time will infect the machine again, and
so on.

The virus code hides in the first block on a disk.  Normally, this area
holds the "boot block", or the very first code that is loaded into the
Amiag.  The disk continues to work as usual.  You can view the virus code
with a disk editor such as the public domain program "Sectorama".

There is a way to eradicate the virus from infected disks.  The standard
AmigaDOS INSTALL command rewrites a uninfected boot block to a disk.  By
running INSTALL on all infected disks, then turning your machine off, you
can eradicate the virus from your disks.


Excerpted with permission from "The AMICUS Network", Amazing Computing
magazine, December 1987.  Copyright (c) 1987 by John Foust.  All Rights
Reserved.