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- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0000
-
-
- 001...............................How to sneak infected files into past SCAN.
- 002...............................The safe way to play with viruses.
- 003...............................Theory Dept. Viruses Slow vs. Fast.
- 004...............................Interview of the month: Skism One.
- 005...............................Artical on The Dark Avenger.
- 006...............................The mother of all viruses - WHALE!
- 007...............................And now a word from a real dick.
- 008...............................The Ontario Virus.
- 009...............................The 1260 Virus.
- 010...............................The Skism 808 source code.
- 011...............................Vienna/Violator source code.
-
-
-
- 40Hex Staff
-
-
- Hellraiser....................Editor/Programming Consultant ETC...
- Nick Haflinger -=PHALCON=-....CO-Editor/Writer/Theory Consultant
- Skism One.....................Virus supply/Co-Programming Consultant
- The Punisher (Brooklyn).......Virus supply
- Garbage Heap..................Main Virus Supply/Overseer
- Spell Checker.................Obvoiusly there is none
-
-
- Call the 40HEX/SKISM Homebase ----- The Landfill BBS (914)-HAK-VMBS
- Sysop Garbage Heap.
- Home of -=PHALCON=-
-
-
- 40Hex wants YOU - The write articles for this mag. Lets make it world wide!
- Send any articles to the 40Hex HQ - The Landfill BBS!
-
- Special shout out to - Sub-Zero (the hard core group), DC Wave, all the
- kids at school.
-
- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0001
-
- - HOW TO GET INFECTED FILES INTO LAME BBS's -
-
-
- Ok, one problem with sending infected files to BBS's is that you never
- can tell if they will be detected by SCAN. Or if you are sending bombs
- the sysop might use CHK4BOMB to detect code that is data damaging.
-
- I'm gonna tell you how to get around this, what you need is the following-
-
- PKLITE or LZEXE
- and
- A good hex editor
-
- What you do is this, compress the infected file with Pklite or Lzexe. This
- will make change the files checksum and ID strings quite a bit so it can't
- be detected by SCAN and damaging data will not be found by CHK4BOMB. The
- problem is that now the sysop can use CHK4LITE to detect is the file is
- indeed infected. So what you do is this --
-
- Load up the hex editior -
-
- Now look at the file, it will look something like this if you compressed it
- with PKLITE.
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- 0000 4D 5A 12 01 13 00 00 00-07 00 98 05 4A A4 52 02 MZööööööööööJöRö
- 0010 00 04 00 00 00 01 F0 FF-50 00 00 00 03 01 50 4B ööööööööPöööööPK
- 0020 4C 49 54 45 20 43 6F 70-72 2E 20 31 39 39 30 20 LITE Copr. 1990
- 0030 50 4B 57 41 52 45 20 49-6E 63 2E 20 41 6C 6C 20 PKWARE Inc. All
- 0040 52 69 67 68 74 73 20 52-65 73 65 72 76 65 64 00 Rights Reservedö
- 0050 0A 00 20 00 17 01 48 00-4A 04 4A A4 E2 03 00 40 öö öööHöJöJöööö@
- 0060 00 00 56 11 00 00 1C 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ööVööööööööööööö
- 0070 B8 E3 07 BA 4B 02 8C DB-03 D8 3B 1E 02 00 73 1D ööööKööööö;ööösö
- 0080 83 EB 20 FA 8E D3 BC 00-02 FB 83 EB 19 8E C3 53 öö ööööööööööööS
- 0090 B9 C3 00 33 FF 57 BE 48-01 FC F3 A5 CB B4 09 BA ööö3öWöHöööööööö
- 00A0 36 01 CD 21 CD 20 4E 6F-74 20 65 6E 6F 75 67 68 6öö!ö Not enough
- 00B0 20 6D 65 6D 6F 72 79 24-FD 8C DB 53 83 C3 2D 03 memory$öööSöö-ö
- 00C0 DA BE FE FF 8B FE 8C CD-8B C5 2B EA 8B CA D1 E1 öööööööööö+ööööö
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- You see the header? Well what you have to do is overwrite the header with
- garbage. Don't write text cause that is to dectectable by a dump program.
- Just overwrite the part that says "PKLITE corp....Reserved" with hex bytes.
- Also distroy the part of the code that says "Not enough memory", dont kill
- the "$" symbol.
-
- This will make the compressed file-
-
- A> Undetectable to virus scanners, and CHK4BOMB type programs
- B> Un-Decompressable
- C> CHK4LITE wont notice it as a PKLITE file
-
- It's that easy!
-
- Keep in mind however than any file that the virus infects will no longer
- be encrypted by PKLITE, so this method is good only on getting your virus
- into the front door.
-
- See the article in issue one on making new virus strains.
-
-
- Forenote
-
- After writing this article SCAN Version 80 came out, It now has the
- ability to scan into Pklite compressed files. Just to let you know that
- this teqnique still works and SCAN cannot detect the file as being
- compressed as PKLITE.
-
- HR
- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0002
-
- THE SAFE WAY TO EXPERIMENT WITH VIRUSES
-
-
- The problem with fooling around with viruses is that you never know
- what damage there going to do to your hard disk. I have a couple of
- so called viruses that when run, automatically screw up the FAT on
- all the disks in the system. Well, theres a way around getting the
- shaft from these programs, and also to experiment with legitament
- viruses.
-
- The key is the DOS utitlity SUBST, make this batch file, and copy it
- to a floppy.
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- @echo off
- subst d: a:\
- subst c: a:\
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- What this will do is send any access to disks C: and D: (the two
- hard disks in my case) to drive A: So the only damage inflicted
- will be to the floppy in A:
-
- No programs can access you hard disk when this command is issued. I
- use it all the time and as of now it has proved 100% safe.
-
- Oh yeah, if you dont feel like distroying a floppy every time you
- mess with a virus, you can do this teqnique from a RAM disk.
-
- Have fun...
-
-
-
- HR
-
- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0003
-
-
- Virus Spreading - Fast Or Slow? By Nick Haflinger -=PHALCON=-
-
- Call The LandFill BBS (914) Hak-Vmbs
- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-
- One of the questions while writing your virus is how quickly you want it
- to spread. The easy answer is "As fast as possible" but this is not always the
- best answer. If a virus moves slowly, it will take much longer before somebody
- notices hard drive space disappearing, he/she will notice fewer changes to the
- file dates, and all other symptoms will be lessened. However, this does provide
- longer for anti-virus people (pronounced Scum, with a capital S) to discover the
- virus. This issue ties directly into the issue of activation, short or long.
- Since the issues are virtually identical, I will cover both together, because
- they are so closely tied.
-
- The Case For Fast
- =================
-
- Viri should spread as quickly as possible. This allows as little time
- as possible for the makers of antivirus programs to come up with an antidote
- before the virus is widely spread. This should be tied with a short activation
- period to cause as many problems as possible before detection is possible.
- Because fewer copies are generated before activation, each copy may be larger.
- This allows for more extensive anti-anti-viral tactics, which are becoming
- increasingly more important as the number of anti-viral products rises. Just
- remember, most of these products are shit. So don't worry too much.
-
- The Case For Slow
- =================
-
- Viri should spread slowly, because this is less obtrusive, and therefore
- users are less likely to notice a change in the system. This should be coupled
- with a long activation period as to have maximum penetration before the virus
- activates. A slow-spreading virus will circulate to more virus programmers who
- will be able to modify the program for specific needs or to adapt to antiviral
- tactics. On a purely academic note, slow spreading viri must be smaller, as
- more copies must be generated. This means that viri must be programmed better,
- which is good for the general community.
-
- The Case Against Fast
- =====================
-
- Fast spreading of viri is likely to draw attention. Once a virus has
- been caught, in most of the cases, it is dead and useless. A virus should
- infect the greatest area in the shortest time before the anti-virus people
- inevitably catch up to the virus. However, because of the necessity of a short
- activation time, this virus has a lesser range than a slow-spreading virus. The
- programmer must rely on either (a) the quick distribution of the virus along at
- least a regional level --or-- (b) the ability of other virus programmers to
- obtain and modify either the source code or dissassemble and modify the
- distributed virus. If possible, the source should be distributed along trusted
- channels. There should be as little chance as possible of an antiviral
- researcher obtaining a copy of the sourse for your masterpiece.
-
- The Case Against Slow
- =====================
-
- A slow spreading virus is much more likely to get caught by antiviral
- people prior to its necessarily long pre-activation period. There will be more
- defenses out against the virus before it has spread much. However, if the virus
- is well-done, it will have spread far before it is caught.
-
- Conclusion
- ==========
-
- Actually, I lied. There is no conclusion to be drawn from this, as this
- is in itself the conclusion of long hours of thought and much brainstorming on
- BBSs. If you would like to comment, I can be reached on LandFill BBS, phone
- number above. In a future article, I will attempt to cover anti-anti-virus
- tactics. I may also respond to some important questions/comments I may recieve.
- Start your viri now! And may the best bug win!
-
- NH
- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0004
-
- Interview with Skism One - AKA Lord SSS (triple S)
-
- This interview was taken by Hellraiser on July 7, 1991 in Washington
- Square Park, Manhatten.
-
- HR: So what got you started in the virus business?
-
- SSS: Well, I used to write graffiti all over and that got sort of
- played out, so I needed something else distructive to do. So
- I started getting into computers, then the next thing you know
- I'm writing viruses.
-
- HR: What was you first experence with viruses?
-
- SSS: Well the first time I heard of them was when that dickhead got
- arrested for putting the worm...
-
- HR: You mean Morris?
-
- SSS: Yeah that asshole, it was on the news and all that - so I got
- to thinking, that would be a cool thing to do.
-
- HR: What was the first virus you ran across?
-
- SSS: Ha... Some dick gave me a copy of (pause) it think it was
- Norton 4.0 when it first came out. So I took it home and put
- it on my hard drive. The next thing you know all this weird
- shit starts going on. Like programs won't run and this little
- box opens up on the bottom of my screen all of a sudden. So I
- get a copy of SCAN, then I find out almost all my files are
- infected with Jerusalem.
-
- HR: What did you do?
-
- SSS: Well I re-formatted the drive and examined the copy of Jeru for
- months. Then one day I used a Hex editor to change the suMSDOs
- string to SKISM-1. Then I went to all the computers I could
- find and infected them. The next thing you know my friend
- shows me this list with my name on it. It was Patti Hoffmans
- document. Shit, I thought I was the man back then.
-
- HR: Then what?
-
- SSS: Then - well I got into assembler and dissasembly and I started
- to learn how to modify the code and all that. The next thing
- you know I had made my own virus from the scraps of Jeru.
-
- HR: Captian Trips, right?
-
- SSS: Yeah, sort of. Then someone I know sent it to all the boards
- in town under a trojan name and fucked a lot of peoples shit
- up. Oh well. Then I guess I grew out of the scavenger mode
- and started writting my own shit, from scratch.
-
- HR: Like what?
-
- SSS: Well they were all called Skism so and so, like Skism 10, Skism
- 11 and all that. Then I meet people and they started helping
- me out and now we got this thing going on.
-
- HR: You mean Smart Kids Into Sick Methods?
-
- SSS: Yeah, you know all thid did did dat.
-
- HR: How do you name your viruses?
-
- SSS: Well depends whats on my mind. Skism was my tag for like four
- years, so I thought it would be cool if people saw my name in
- the newspaper and all that. I got Captian Trips after reading
- The Stand, by Stephen King. 1992 was just what I named it cause
- the virus came out to be about 1945 bytes so I jusy padded it out
- to next years date. 808 was named after the TR-808, a 'drum
- machine' used in hip-hop.
-
- HR: Whats the latest projects?
-
- SSS: You know, you wrote most of the shit.
-
- HR: Tell them. The people.
-
- SSS: Well, we did SKISM 1992, which was funny, then a member of
- SKISM, who shall be nameless made 808. Now I'm just taking a
- break from viruses and computers for the summer.
-
- HR: You stopped?
-
- SSS: Your crazy, nah - It's got to wait a while, then I'll get back
- into it - when school starts again.
-
- HR: What do you think of McAffe?
-
- SSS: He's cool, what the fuck am supposed to say. He does a good
- job at spreading my name around. I really like Pat Hoffman,
- thanks for the write ups. You got to understand - these people
- make us into infamous villians. I can deal with that.
-
- HR: Do you mind them detecting your viruses?
-
- SSS: Nah, fuck it - If my shit can make it from NY to California
- without effort, it shows it works. Thats it. Thers a lot more
- where that came from. One more thing, I hate that gay bitch
- Ross Greenburg author of Flu-Shot. What
- a dick. He's just an asshole tring to sell his shit product.
- He's got a big mouth and instead of crashing his board, I'd
- like to kick his fucken ass. Where's his office? Up one 57th
- right? Lets take a walk. Just kiddin' but the guys product
- sucks and he's just a greedy asshole. I'm glad I sent a trojan
- version of his virus scanner around. Ha you dick!
-
- HR: What virus authors do you look up to?
-
- SSS: Myself - Ha Ha (laughter) Ha Ha. No, I love Whale - that was
- clever. I like Dark Avenger, the real one. Its hard to be
- original, and these guys were. Hats off you crazy fuckin'
- Bulgarian Metal-Head!
-
- HR: What about groups of virus writers?
-
- SSS: I think were the only one. Oh yeah and those Rabid people you
- told me about, yeah there just like us - people tring to make
- there mark in the world, or should I say dent in the world.
- Germans are bugging out too - Shit, they write half the shit out
- there these days. More power to them
-
- HR: What is your advise to people who want to write viruses?
-
- SSS: Get a late pass! No as I said more power to you. Just remember
- you got to have style and learn to be ORIGINAL.
-
- HR: What next from you?
-
- SSS: I don't really know. I'm waiting to hook up a few more people
- to the pack, then we'll get the thing rollin HARD. Till then
- 'A little at a time...'
-
-
- At the time this artical was finished, the Skism team was at work on
- a new virus code named Bad Brains.
-
- HR
- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0005
-
-
-
-
-
- The Dark Avenger
- --- ---- -------
- Part I. The Dark Avenger
- -------------------------
-
- Introduction:
-
- The following text file was sent directly to Professor
- Vesselin Bontchev in a public sent to an anti-viral board
- located in Sofia, Bulgaria.
-
- Bontchev is one of the leading anti-viral researchers in
- Europe today. A producer of number of effective anti-viral
- programs in Bulgaria, his programs are widely used throughout
- Europe.
-
- The Dark Avenger is Bulgaria's most dangerous viral code
- writer and a heavy metal fanatic - as this message concerning
- himself, written by him (often referring to himself in third
- person) reveals:
-
- ----------------
-
- DARK AVENGER
- ============
-
- DARK AVENGER is the pseudonym used by a particularly prolific and
- malicious Bulgarian virus writer. It is also the name given in the
- West to some of his earlier viruses. His viruses include:
-
- DARK AVENGER V651, V1800, V2000 and V2100
-
- NUMBER OF THE BEAST aka 512 (several versions)
-
- ANTHRAX (Infects both files and boot sectors)
-
- V800 and its derivatives: 1226, PROUD, EVIL & PHOENIX
-
- Some other viruses, e.g. NOMENKLATURA & DIAMOND are in his style but
- are believed to be the work of others. MURPHY has been strongly
- influenced by him but is known to be of different authorship.
- CRAZY EDDIE may also be his.
-
- Several 'hacks' are now appearing of V1800, V2100, MURPHY and
- DIAMOND.
-
- ************* more **********
-
- Eddie is the mascot of the British heavy metal group, Iron Maiden
- (hence 'up the irons'). It is a 20 foot high skeleton that appears
- on stage with them and is featured on the sleeves of all their
- albums.
-
- Anthrax and Damage Inc are other heavy metal groups whose names have
- been featured in some Dark Avenger viruses. Iron Maiden numbers have
- also been mentioned including 'Somewhere in Time', 'Only the Good Die
- Young' and 'Number of the Beast'.
-
- ************** more **********
-
- Unusually, this virus writer has also produced a virus removal
- program together with a version log of his EDDIE series, as
- reproduced below with its original spelling and grammar.
-
- "DOCTOR QUICK! Virus Doctor for the Eddie Virus Version 2.01
- 10-31-89 Copyright (c) 1988-89 Dark Avenger. All rights reserved.
- DOCTOR /? for help
-
- It may be of interest to you to know that Eddie (also known as "Dark
- Avenger") is the most widespread virus in Bulgaria for the time
- being. However I have information that Eddie is well known in the
- USA, West Germany and USSR too.
-
- I started in writing the virus in early September 1988. In those
- times there were no any viruses in Bulgaria, so I decided to write
- the first Bulgarian virus. There were some different Eddie's
- versions:
-
- VERSION 1.1, 16-DEC-1988
-
- In December I've decided to enhance the virus. This version could
- infect files during their opening. For that reason, a read buffer
- was allocated in high end of memory, rather than using DOS function
- 48h when needed. The disk was destroyed instead of the infected
- files.
-
- VERSION 1.2, 19-DEC-1988
-
- This added a new feature that causes (for example) compiled programs
- to be infected at once if the virus is resident. Also, the "Eddie
- lives..." message was added (can you guess why exactly "Eddie"?)
-
- VERSION 1.31, 3-JAN-1989
-
- This became the most common version of Eddie. A code was added to
- find the INT 13 rom-vector on many popular XT's and AT's. Also,
- other messages were added so its length would be exactly 1800 bytes.
- There was a subsequent, 1.32 version (19-JAN-1989), which added
- self-checksum and other interesting features that was abandoned
- because it was extremely buggy.
-
- In early March 1989 version 1.31 was called into existence and
- started to live its own life to all engineers' and other suckers'
- terror. And, the last
-
- VERSION 1.4, 17-OCT-1989
-
- This was a bugfix for version 1.31, and added some interesting new
- features. Support has been added for DOS 2.x and DOS 4.x. For
- further information about this (the most terrible) version, and to
- learn how to find out a program author by its code, or why
- virus-writers are still not dead, contact Mr. Vesselin Bontchev (All
- Rights Reserved).
-
- So, never say die! Eddie lives on and on and on... Up the irons!"
-
- NOTE:
- Vesselin Bontchev, who the Dark Avenger is trying to discredit, is a
- leading virus researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
-
-
- Post Note:
-
- There is a rumor concerning the fact that RABID now has
- the Dark Avenger on their staff of virus writers, and that
- the new Dark Avenger variant released by them was, in fact,
- written by him. This has yet to be proven.
-
- The more acceptable belief concerning this new strain
- is that RABID simply picked up the source code for Dark Avenger,
- released last December, and modified it.
-
- Part II - Dark Avenger - Strain A
- -----------------------
-
- Vesselin Bontchev reports in May 1990:
-
- The Dark Avenger virus.
- ======================
-
- - I found two new mutations of this virus. Well, maybe
- "mutations" is not the correct word. In the first of them, the
- first 16 characters of the string "Eddie lives... somewhere in
- time!" were replaced with blanks.
-
- In the second example, all strings (the message above, the
- copyright message and the "Diana P." string) were replaced with
- blanks. - The author of the Dark Avenger virus (The bastard! I
- still cannot determine who he is.) has released the source code
- of his virus.
-
- It is full with ironic comments about me. Of course, now we have
- to expect lots of new, similar viruses to appear. At least, this
- leaded to one good thing - the source helped me very much in
- disassembling the V2000 virus. - I received a rather offensive
- anonymous letter from this person. In it he claims to be also
- the author of both the V2000 (I trust this) and the Number of the
- Beast viruses (the latter is unlikely). [See Above]
-
-
- Information About the Dark Avenger Virus, courtesy of
- "Virus Bulletin Ltd," Buckinghamshire, England.
-
- Note:
-
- This information is far more valuable than the standard
- Virus Summary by Patricia Hoffman. Her entry concerning DA
- fails to go into more depth about the Dark Avenger virus and
- apparently she has yet to receive information of the
- different versions of DA. Such information is already a year
- old, but she has yet to include it.
-
- Entry...............: Dark Avenger
- Alias(es)...........: ---
- Virus Strain........: Dark Avenger
- Virus detected when.: November 1989
- where.: USA
- Classification......: February 1990
- Length of Virus.....: about 1800 Bytes
- --------------------- Preconditions -----------------------------------
- Operating System(s).: DOS
- Version/Release.....:
- Computer model(s)...: IBM-compatible
- --------------------- Attributes --------------------------------------
- Easy Identification.: Two Texts:
- "Eddie lives...somewhere in time" at beginning
- and
- "This Program was written in the City of Sofia
- (C) 1988-89 Dark Avenger" near end of file
-
- Type of infection...: Link-virus
- COM-files: appends to the program and installs a
- short jump
- EXE-files: appends to the program at the
- beginning of the next paragraph
-
- Infection Trigger...: COM and EXE files are corrupted on any read
- attempt even when VIEWING!!!
-
- Storage media affected: Any Drive
-
- Interrupts hooked...: Int 21 DOS-services
- Int 27 Terminate and Stay Resident
-
- Damage..............: Overwrites a random sector with bootblock
-
- Damage Trigger......: each 16th infection; counter located in
- Bootblock
-
- Particularities.....: -
-
- Similarities........: -
-
-
- --------------------- Agents ------------------------------------------
-
- Countermeasures.....: NONE! All data can be destroyed !!!!
- There is no way in retrieving lost data.
- Backups will most probably be destroyed too.
-
- Countermeasures successful: install McAfee's SCANRES.
-
- Standard means......: Good luck! Hopefully the virus did not destroy
- too many of your programs and data.
-
- --------------------- Acknowledgement ---------------------------------
- Location............: VTC Uni Hamburg
- Classification by...: Matthias Jaenichen
- Documentation by....: Matthias Jaenichen
- Date................: 31.01.1990
-
- Part III - DARK AVENGER 2000
- =================
-
- Date: 02 Feb 90 10:49:00 +0700
- From: Vesselin Bontchev
-
- This virus is also "made in Bulgaria" and again I am indirectly the
- cause of its creation. I am a well known "virus-buster" in Bulgaria
- and my antivirus programs are very widely used. Of course, virus
- designers didn't like it. So their next creation... causes trouble
- to my antivirus programs.
-
- This virus is exactly 2000 bytes long and I think that it was
- created by the author of the Eddie (Dark Avenger) virus. The
- programming style is the same and there are even pieces of code
- which are the same.
-
- The virus acts much like the Eddie one --- it installs resident in
- memory by manipulating the memory control blocks; infects
- COMMAND.COM at the first run; infects both .COM- and .EXE-files;
- infects files when one executes them as well as when one copies
- them.
-
- However, there are some extras added. First, the virus is able to
- fetch the original INT 13h vector just like the V512 one (by using
- the same undocumented function --- tricks spread fast between virus
- programmers).
-
- Second, it intercepts the find-first (FCB) and find-next (FCB)
- functions --- just like V651 (aka EDDIE II) (and contains the same
- bugs), so you won't see the increased file lengths in the listing
- displayed by the DIR command.
-
- Third, it contains the string "Copyright (C) 1989 by Vesselin
- Bontchev", so people may think that I am the author of this virus.
- In fact, the virus searches every program being executed for this
- string (the case of the letters does not matter) and if found,
- hangs the system. It is not necessary to tell you that all my
- antivirus programs contain this string. Of course, now I will have
- to use some kind of encryption, just to prevent such tricks.
-
- Vesselin Bontchev reported in May 1990:
-
- The V2000 virus (DARK AVENGER 2000)
- ===================================
-
- - It turned out that the example of this virus I sent to some of
- the antivirus researchers was not the original version. The
- original contains the string "Only the Good die young..."
- instead of the "Copy me - I want to travel" message. Also a
- small piece of code in the original version was patched to
- contain the "666" string. (That is, the version you have contains
- this string, the original does not.)
-
- - There exists also a small mutation of the version you have.
- The only difference is that the `C' character in the word "Copy"
- was changed to `Z'.
-
- - When describing the V2000 virus, I stated that it halts the
- computer if you run a program which contains the string
- "Copyright (c) 1989 by Vesselin Bontchev". This is not quite
- correct. In fact, the programs are only checked for the "Vesselin
- Bontchev" part of the string.
-
- - I obtained John McAfee's program Clean, version 60. In the
- accompanying documentation he states about the V2000 virus that
- "The virus is very virulent and has caused system crashes and
- lost data, as well as causing some systems to become non-bootable
- after infection". This is not very correct, or at least, there
- is much more to be said. The virus is exactly as virulent as the
- Dark Avenger virus, and for the same reason. It infects files
- not only when one executes them, but also when one reads or
- copies them. This is achieved exactly in the same manner as in
- the Dark Avenger. The systems become non-bootable when the virus
- infects the two hidden files of the operating system - it cannot
- distinguish them from the regular .COM files. By the way, the
- Dark Avenger virus often causes the same effect. And at last,
- but not least (:-)), the virus is highly destructive - just as
- the Dark Avenger is. It destroys the information on a randomly
- selected sector on the disk once in every 16 runs of an infected
- program. The random function is exactly the same, and the
- counters (0 to 15 and for the last attacked sector) are exactly
- the same and on the same offsets in the boot sector as with the
- Dark Avenger virus. The main difference is that the destroyed
- sector is overwritten not with a part of the virus body, but with
- the boot sector instead. This makes a bit more difficult to
- discover which files are destroyed - the boot sector is contained
- in many "good" programs, such as FORMAT, SYS, NDD. Also, the
- nastiest thing - the damage function is not performed via INT 26h
- (which can be intercepted). The virus determines the address of
- the device driver for the respective disk unit (using an
- undocumented DOS function call, of course. I begin to wonder if
- Ralf Brown did any good when he made the information in the
- INTERxyy file available :-)). Then it performs a direct call to
- that address. The device driver in DOS does its work and issues
- the appropriate INT 13h. However the virus has scanned the
- controllers' ROM space and has determined the original address of
- the interrupt handler - just as the Dark Avenger virus does.
- Then it has temporary replaced the INT 13h vector with the
- address of this handler. The result is that the damage function
- cannot be intercepted.
-
- - Also this virus (unlike Dark Avenger) supports PC-DOS version
- 4.0 and will work (and infect) under it.
-
- - The bytes 84 A8 A0 AD A0 20 8F 2E in the virus body are the
- name "Diana P.", this time written in cyrillics.
-
- Unknown Source
-
-
- 40Hex Volume 1 Issue 2 0006
-
-
- The Whale Virus
-
-
- Oh yes here it is, the biggest and meanest virus around. First
- before you go and compile it read what Patti thinks of it.
-
-
- Aliases: Mother Fish, Stealth Virus, Z The Whale
- V Status: Research
- Discovered: August, 1990
- Symptoms: .COM & .EXE growth; decrease in available memory;
- system slowdown; video flicker; slow screen writes;
- file allocation errors; simulated system reboot
- Origin: Hamburg, West Germany
- Eff Length: 9,216 Bytes
- Type Code: PRhA - Parasitic Resident .COM & .EXE Infector
- Detection Method: ViruScan V67+, Pro-Scan 2.01+, NAV, IBM Scan 2.00+
- Removal Instructions: Scan/D, CleanUp V67+, Pro-Scan 2.01+,
- or Delete infected files
- General Comments:
- The Whale Virus was submitted in early September, 1990. This virus
- had been rumored to exist since the isolation of the Fish 6 Virus in
- June, 1990. It has been referred to by several names besides Whale,
- including Mother Fish and Z The Whale. The origin of this virus is
- subject to some speculation, though it is probably from Hamburg,
- West Germany due to a reference within the viral code once it is 0*0*0*ùù ╒ε decrypted.
-
- The first time a program infected with the Whale Virus is executed,
- the Whale will install itself memory resident in high system memory
- but below the 640K DOS boundary. On the author's XT clone, the
- virus always starts at address 9D90. Available free memory will
- be decreased by 9,984 bytes. Most utilities which display memory
- usage will also indicate a value for total system memory which is
- 9,984 bytes less than what is actually installed.
-
- The following text string can be found in memory on systems
- infected with the Whale virus:
-
- "Z THE WHALE".
-
- Immediately upon becoming memory resident, the system user will
- experience the system slowing down. Noticeable effects of the
- system slowdown include video flicker to extremely slow screen
- writes. Some programs may appear to "hang", though they will
- eventually execute properly in most cases since the "hang" is due
- to the slowing of the system.
-
- When a program is executed with the Whale memory resident, the virus
- will infect the program. Infected programs increase in length, the
- actual change in length is usually 9,216 bytes. Note the "usually":
- this virus does occasionally infect a program with a "mutant" which
- will be a different length. If the file length increase is exactly
- 9,216 bytes, the Whale will hide the change in file length when a
- disk directory command is executed. If the file length of the viral
- code added to the program is other than 9,216 bytes, the file length
- displayed with the directory command will either the actual infected
- file length, or the actual infected file length minus 9,216 bytes.
-
- Executing the DOS CHKDSK program on infected systems will result in
- file allocation errors being reported. If CHKDSK /F is executed,
- file damage will result.
-
- The Whale also alters the program's date/time in the directory when
- the file is executed, though it is not set to the system date/time
- of infection. Occasionally, Whale will alter the directory entry
- for the program it is infecting improperly, resulting in the directory
- entry becoming invalid. These programs with invalid directory
- entries will appear when the directory is listed, but some disk
- utilities will not allow access to the program. In these cases, the
- directory entry can be fixed with Norton Utilities FD command to
- reset the file date.
-
- The Whale occasionally will change its behavior while it is memory
- resident. While most of the time it only infects files when
- executed, there are periods of time when it will infect any file
- opened for any reason. It will also, at times, disinfect files
- when they are copied with the DOS copy command, at other times it
- will not "disinfect on the fly".