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- *** Reports collected and collated by ***
- *** PC-Virus Index ***
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-
- Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 23:16:00 -0500
- From: Michael Head <CCMH@MVS.MCGILL.CA>
- Subject: new boot sector virus (PC)
-
- We have found an unknown boot sector virus on "COMBASE" and
- "SVGA-UTILITY" software shipped in PACKARD-BELL PACKMATE-III and
- 386sx computers . The diskettes are in sealed envelopes. The seal
- bears characters which appear to be chinese .
-
- The disks were not intended to be booted and will produce the
- standard error message "NON-SYSTEM DISK etc." if accidently booted,
- however the harddisk if present will have been infected.
-
- The symptoms are varied. Some infected systems play a few notes with
- every DOS command issued . On others there are no notes but there is
- a lot of I/O of write protected disks (one has the feeling it is
- trying to burn its way onto the disk) . Still others (my
- quarantined Taiwanese AT) will not boot at all after being infected.
-
- Now for the bad news. SCANV67c does not report anything. F-PROT113
- also doesn't find a known virus but reports the boot sector is an
- unusual DOS boot sector and there may be a an unknown virus. (Thanks
- Fridrik,it sure is lonely trying to convince yourself your the first
- one to ever see a brand new virus).
-
- Michael Head
-
- ------------ more ----------
-
- Date: 30 November, 1990
- From: Padgett Peterson <padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com>
- Subject: MUSICBUG (PC)
-
- Thanks to Michael Head, I have had a chance to take a brief look at
- this infector. If it were not for the vector, it might not be
- dangerous, however it appears to be being distributed along with
- Packard- Bell computers. Since these are often sold from general
- merchandisors, it has the capacity to become widespread among
- non-computer-literate users.
-
- The distribution appears to be on utilities disks provided with the
- computers. I have not fully disassembled the virus yet but it is a
- boot sector infector that can be recognised on floppies since the
- DOS warning messages are not found on the boot sector and the jump
- parameter of CCh is found in the third byte.
-
- Once infected, the virus goes resident in the TOM reducing a CHKDSK
- total memory return by 4k (640k machine will report 651,264 bytes
- instead of 655,360 bytes).
-
- Only part of the code is stored in the boot sector of an infected
- floppy. What looks like sloppy programming has the virus store the
- action in DOS sector 45 (cyl 2 head 1 sect 1) on the floppy,
- overwriting sector(s) in the files area. Both this sector and the
- reserved area at the TOM will contain the ASCII string "MusicBug
- v1.06. MacroSoft Corp.". It looks like this string will be found at
- 9C00:0210 in memory but cannot guarentee the address yet. Once the
- rest of it is pulled apart, I can let you know what it does to a
- hard disk & hopefully a cure.
-
- From what I have been told, the sealed envelopes containing the
- floppy are marked with the same imprint of a blue floppy disk & blue
- numbers partially overwritten by a red square containing what look
- like chinese characters as was found with the "Modular Component
- Technologies" disks that contained the STONED virus a few months
- ago.
-
- Meanwhile, it's getting late,
- Padgett
-
- ------- more --------
-
- Date: 03 Dec 90 14:30:21 +0000
- From: frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason)
- Subject: Re: new boot sector virus (PC)
-
- CCMH@MVS.MCGILL.CA (Michael Head) writes: We have found an unknown
- boot sector virus on "COMBASE" and "SVGA-UTILITY" software shipped
- in PACKARD-BELL PACKMATE-III and 386sx computers . The diskettes
- are in sealed envelopes. The seal bears characters which appear to
- be chinese .
-
- The diskettes are probably from Taiwan - a country which is
- practically flooded by viruses - a friend of mine ordered a machine
- from a company there and received it infected with three different
- viruses.
-
- Also, every company in Iceland which imports machines from Taiwan,
- has at least once received infected machines or floppies.
-
- Now for the bad news. SCANV67c does not report anything. F-PROT113
- also doesn't find a known virus but reports the boot sector is an
- unusual DOS boot sector and there may be a an unknown virus. (Thanks
- Fridrik,it sure is lonely trying to convince yourself your the first
- one to ever see a brand new virus).
-
- Well, I am glad the routine I added in version 1.13 to analyze boot
- sectors for suspicious code turned out to be useful - I am working
- on improvements for version 1.14
-
- - -frisk
-
- Fridrik Skulason University of Iceland |
- Technical Editor of the Virus Bulletin (UK) | Reserved for future
- expansion E-Mail: frisk@rhi.hi.is Fax: 354-1-28801 |
-
- ------------- more ----------
-
- Date: 12 December, 1990
- From: Padgett Peterson <padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com>
- Subject: Music-Bug Update (PC)
-
- Recently, I received several infected disks in what appear to be the
- original un-opened sealed envelopes. Examination showed that the
- seals, while similar to those on the "Modular Component
- Technologies" disk that contained the STONED virus, are different.
- First, the envelopes have square flaps rather than the triangular
- one used on the MCT disk. Second, the "floppy disk" seal uses a
- thinner font and a different typeface than the MCT. Finally, the
- red square overlay is centered on the seal and has different
- (chinese ?) characters. The seals bear the (sequence ?) numbers
- 01206 and 01081.
-
- As mentioned, SCAN v71 does detect this virus [Muboot] on these
- disks but CLEAN does not disinfect them. Floppies may be disinfected
- by replacement of the boot sector though the other eight sectors of
- the virus may have overlaid part of files on the disk. On the
- samples provided, the virus stores the real boot sector followed by
- seven viral code sectors on the disk with the CX and DX values for
- Int 13 retrieval stored in offset 42h (DX) and 44h (CX) of the disk
- boot sector.
-
- The original disks show no errors, but after infecting a floppy,
- CHKDSK reported "4 lost clusters in 4 chains" where the 4096 bytes
- of viral code appeared on the disk following pre-existing programs.
- Since the real boot sector is stored here, use of the /F with CHKDSK
- followed by deletion/overwrite of the "garbage" files would render a
- previously bootable floppy disk unbootable.
-
- In limited testing on a hard disk (ST-412), the virus infects the
- boot record (not the partition table) and after a cold boot from a
- clean, protected floppy, the above method of recovery works. On the
- HD, the "lost clusters" do not coincide with the viral code, instead
- files in other areas may be corrupted/lost in multiple 4k (or
- larger) chunks.
-
- My concern is that since these disks were apparently distributed
- along with Packard-Bell Computers and these computers are generally
- sold by mass marketeers & department stores (I have seen about a
- dozen ads in the last week) that the potential for a considerable
- spread exists. I have no idea how many disks are involved.
-
- Incidently, regardless of the operating system involved, these
- infected disks have the signature "IBM 3.3" in the infected boot
- record and the first three bytes of the sector are "FA E9 CC". No
- "stealth" is involved. An infected machine will have total memory
- reduced by 4096 bytes (on 640k machine, CHKDSK will report 651264
- bytes instead of 655360).
-
- The following is a abbreviated directory listing of the three
- infected distribution disks (2 in "SVA" envelope, 1 in "COMBASE"
- envelope - note: id is by disk label, there are no markings on the
- envelopes other than the seal):
-
- "SVGA-Utility" Disk No. 1 "SVGA-Utility" Disk No. 2
-
- Volume in drive A has no label Volume in drive A has no label
- Directory of A:\ Directory of A:\
-
- VGA800 DRV 32720 10-19-88 WIN30 <DIR> 1-01-80
- VGA800 GRB 3573 10-18-88 OAK386 3EX 34460 2-24-89
- VGA800 LGO 468 10-18-88 OAK386 386 139491 2-24-89
- SD_VGA_5 VGA 46592 10-07-88 OAK386 GRB 8589 2-24-89
- SDVGA8 VGA 48128 10-05-88 OAK386 LGO 468 11-12-87
- DSVGA EXE 11003 10-13-88 OAK386 DRV 32720 10-19-88
- VP11 EXE 11006 3-19-87 READ ME 574 8-09-90
- GEMINSTL BAT 2935 10-29-88 7 File(s) 67584 bytes free
- SETUP TXT 1968 10-23-88
- VP BAT 51 10-23-88 "COMBASE" Disk
- GEMSETUP TXT 12072 11-03-88
- VP1_1 TXT 2205 10-30-88 Volume in drive A is NN
- OAK25V2 DRV 990 1-25-89 Directory of A:\
- OAK43V2 DRV 990 1-25-89
- OAK640V2 DRV 2023 1-25-89 ADCOMHLP DBF 1214 3-31-89
- OAK800V2 DRV 2023 1-25-89 ADCOMHLP DBT 36462 3-31-89
- OAK3 SC 1503 2-08-89 ADCOMM DBT 1536 2-08-88
- OAK4 SC 1539 2-08-89 ADCOMMAC DBT 1024 11-18-87
- OAK5 SC 6611 2-07-89 COMBASE EXE 289328 3-31-89
- OAK6 SC 6625 2-07-89 ADCOMMAC MAC 211 3-31-89
- OAK1 SC 1503 3-07-89 ADCOMM MAS 66 1-11-90
- OAK2 SC 1539 3-07-89 ADCOMM TEL 540 1-18-90
- DSVGA9 EXE 13480 3-16-89 ADCOMDEF MEM 1348 1-16-90
- READ ME 1513 1-03-80 CAPTURE TXT 0 5-06-89
- UTILITY <DIR> 1-01-80 10 File(s) 25600 bytes free
- 25 File(s) 59392 bytes free
-
-
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