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EnigmA Amiga Run 1996 June
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EnigmA AMIGA RUN 08 (1996)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1996-06][EARSAN CD VII].iso
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virus
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1996-04-14
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5KB
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93 lines
@4 THIS TEXT SAMPLE TAKEN FROM ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO WORKBENCH 3
WHICH IS AVAILABLE FREE FROM F1, SEE FREEBIES ARTICLE@6
SOME FACTS ABOUT VIRI
@3 ------------------@6
A virus is just a small program, written by a bored/nasty programmer
and meant to cause us users a lot of hassle and sometimes money.
There are hundreds of different "strains" of viri on the Amiga.
Basically there are only two types of virus prevalent on the Amiga,
Link and Boot. I will cover Link viri in a later volume, but here I will
tell you about Boot viri as they are the most common of the two.
Some viri can format your disk, some wipe the odd file, some just flash up
an insulting message, one even reverses your mouse controls!
So, how does a virus get into your system and onto your disks?
#7CLICK ON 'NEXT' TO CONTINUE
A little story:@4
Fred Bloggs gets a new Amiga and asks his friend Joe Brown if he has any
P.D disks he can make a copy of, unknowingly Joe gives Fred an
infected disk he had previously got off another friend. Anyway, Fred runs
the disk and the virus loads in from the infected disk and copies itself
into Freds Amigas memory. The virus copies itself into a special
part of memory that only gets cleared when the Amiga is turn off by the
power pack and not turned back on for at least 20 seconds.
So a copy of the virus is sitting in memory, and the original virus is
still on the disk. Fred finishes playing the game and decides to load
another disk, he flicks off the power supply for a second or two inserts
the new (clean) disk and turns the power back on.
The virus has survived as the Amiga operating system didn't have long
enough to clear all of its memory properly. Fred's game is loading, the
virus is monitoring freds Amiga for any disk activity, the virus checks to
see if the disk is write protected or not, it isn't,
Great! says the virus and copies itself onto the new disk. After copying
itself onto 20 different disks the virus activates itself proper and lets
fred know of its presence, the virus prints a nasty message on the screen
and wiped the disk in freds drive, the disk just happened to be an
expensive application fred bought last week. This will happen when each
copy of the virus has copied itself another 20 times. Can you see how
within a few days all of Freds disks were infected? If Fred had taken a
few simple precautions none of this would of happened.
@6
* Always keep your floppy disks write protected at all times, only write
enable them when absolutely necessary.
@1
* Use an up to date virus checker on any new disk you get before running
the disk proper.
#7WARNING:@2
If you virus check a commercial game be careful as most commercial games
(and some P.D games and demos) use a custom loader on the bootblock which
most virus checkers will detect as Non-standard, unless the virus checker
says the disk has a virus and gives you the name of the virus don't try
and kill it. As a general rule, if a virus checker says the disk has a
non standard boot block then 99.9% of the time it will be harmless or will
be a programmers boot loader, if it is a boot loader and you kill it the
disk will be rendered useless. This only applies if you use an up to date
virus checker.
@5
* When resetting the Amiga to use another program make sure you turn off
from the power pack and wait at least 20-30 seconds. The down side of
this is the Amiga's circuitry is at it's most vunerable to electrical
surges when switch on from the mains.
@3
Beginners should NOT use the Amiga/Amiga/ctrl keys to do a warm reset.
UNLESS you WRITE PROTECT all of your disks.
@4
If you think you have a virus on a disk and are not sure what to do, send
me the disk with a cover note and a SAE and I will check it out for you.
No SAE no reply.
@1
**************************************************************************
@5Once again I cannot stress how important it is to keep your disks write
protected, if you do a virus will NEVER spread into your collection it will
stay on its original disk and sit in memory. W A I T I N G for you to make
a mistake like inserting an unprotected disk..@1
**************************************************************************
@6 THIS TEXT SAMPLE TAKEN FROM ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO WORKBENCH 3
WHICH IS AVAILABLE FREE FROM F1, SEE FREEBIES ARTICLE@2
#7NOW CLICK ON THE 'INDEX' BUTTON