VIRUS-L Digest   Friday, 26 Jul 1991    Volume 4 : Issue 131

Today's Topics:

Re: HighMemory(even longer & more technical) (PC)
Viral Use of Memory Over 640K; Trust (PC)
Re: CARMEL TntVirus, A Trojan suspect. (PC)
Re: Philosophy, comments & Re: long and technical (PC)
Printer paranoia
Virus Scan V57 and V77. (PC)
Re: F-PROT & DOS 5.0 (PC)
New Jerusalem - Help! (PC)
Re: Anti-Virus software recommendation sought
Terminology and Taxonomy
Re: Revised Product Test- - Virex (Mac)
Toward a Taxonomy of Malicious Programs
Re: Self-scanning executables (PC)

VIRUS-L is a moderated, digested mail forum for discussing computer
virus issues; comp.virus is a non-digested Usenet counterpart.
Discussions are not limited to any one hardware/software platform -
diversity is welcomed.  Contributions should be relevant, concise,
polite, etc.  Please sign submissions with your real name.  Send
contributions to [email protected] (that's equivalent to
VIRUS-L at LEHIIBM1 for you BITNET folks).  Information on accessing
anti-virus, documentation, and back-issue archives is distributed
periodically on the list.  Administrative mail (comments, suggestions,
and so forth) should be sent to me at: [email protected].

  Ken van Wyk

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    25 Jul 91 15:11:23 +0000
>From:    [email protected] (Keith Rohrer)
Subject: Re: HighMemory(even longer & more technical) (PC)

[email protected] (Vasili Bykov) writes:
>In his article [email protected] (Keith Rohrer) writes:
>>>scanner ). It is sure that BIOS INT 13 handler resides somewhere between
>>>segment adresses 0C000h and 0FFFFh. As soon as the execution gets into
>>      Yeah, but what if I have an infected program (whose infection
>>traps INT 13) in high memory?  On my machine, for one, I've got disk
>>BIOS at CC00 and everything from D000 to EFFF is high RAM...
>
>Using such a technique (tracing addresses during INT 13h execution) you
>cannot guarantee that the address you find is the same as the one which
>is set by BIOS during POST. If you have some card installed, its
>firmware can re-install INT 13 on itself during ROM-scan. In such a
>case the address you get is the entry point of this firmware's routine.
>
>So the only thing you can guarantee is: this code is situated above
>0C00h and below 0FFFFh memory segment (or some other values which you
>choose). MAY THIS CODE BE A PART OF SOME VIRUS?
>
>[]      Well, so what if you have a high RAM ? I say, "No, in 9999
>        cases of 10000 it is not a virus too." The reason is the
>        principles of high memory organization.
>
>If you have expanded memory, that is a memory above 0A000h segment, but
>within 1 megabyte address space, you should follow Lotus-Intel-Microsoft
>convention named EMS (Expanded Memory Specification) in order to
                 ^^^
But my machine has no EMS; I have 1 Meg of memory on the motherboard,
and the NEAT chipset allows one's 286 machine to map high memory.
Also, on 386 machines, when a memory manager like QEMM maps high
memory (UMB "upper memory blocks" (DOS 5.0 messed up the terminology,
so now "high" refers to HMA...leave it to Microsoft...)) for using
device drivers, it essentially pulls EMS memory down to map there, but
unlike memory in the EMS page frame, UMB memory is *never* paged out.
The processor's memory mapping lets you treat it just like regular DOS
memory, except that it's not contiguous with the base 640K so DOS
programs may have problems trying to use it directly.  That's where
the "loadhi" (DOS 5's loadhigh/lh/devicehigh) commands come in: they
put a device driver or other TSR program in a UMB.  If that program is
already infected, unless the virus has problems being loaded in a UMB
region, it can still take over, and in fact most drivers (and so
probably most .COM/.EXE infecting viruses) have no problem working
from a UMB just like they work when loaded low.

>handle it. You must use EMS memory driver to do so. Usually this memory is
>used for keeping huge amounts of data like spreadsheets. Some code may
>be placed there too. But it *MUST NOT* be a code which handles
>interrupts. Expanded memory is bankable, that is its total amount may
                                   ^^^^
Yes, when you're using EMS memory as EMS, it is paged into a "page
frame" by the EMS handler.  The full specification, however, allows
one to map EMS memory into any free space (possibly with the
constraint that that space be at segment A000 or higher, I'm not
certain)--if your EMS manager supports UMBs with EMS, it maps the EMS
memory down to the UMB, then *never*pages*it*out*.  The only areas of
memory one should expect to be volatile are video memory (if you've
got 256K of video memory or more, the board bank-switches it) and the
page frame.  Unless there's problems with the particular driver,
loading drivers into UMBs is safe and saves low memory.

>[stuff deleted]
>if you set interrupt address to code located in expanded memory, a
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Do you mean, "located in the page frame"?  Except in rare cases where
you have somehow turned EMS paging off (usually because you use the same
pool of memory as XMS and EMS, and are using it all as XMS at the
moment), putting code in the page frame is sheer insanity.

>[more deleted]
>If you have extended memory, that is a memory above 0FFFFh segment, you
>can use it only in protected mode of 80286/386/486 processor using
>their segment selectors mechanism. MS DOS runs in real processor mode,
>and you cannot reach code there via real mode's interrupt table.
True.

>[deleted]
>That's why I suggest that a code in high memory address space is not a
>malicious one.

One thing that I will agree that is if nothing is loaded high, it isn't
a virus, especially if you stopped things from loading high by axeing
the memory manager from your CONFIG.SYS.  A virus that's smart enough to
infect a .COM or .EXE that's also not too smart for itself in some way,
however, can easily be loaded high if it infects a TSR that you load
high.

>- -|- Vasili Bykov -|- Moscow -|- [email protected] -|-

       Keith
([email protected])
(Any opinions presented above can't possibly reflect the views of my
boss, since I don't think he even knows I get netnews...)

------------------------------

Date:    25 Jul 91 12:42:00 -0500
>From:    "William Walker C60223 x4570" <[email protected]>
Subject: Viral Use of Memory Over 640K; Trust (PC)

>From:    [email protected] (Vasili Bykov)
> []      In case of trivial PC without high memory the answer is *NO*,
>         surely.  For those machines anything you have above 0A000h
>         segment is either video data or some ROM routines. ...

The answer is "unlikely, but possible."  There are variants of the 512
and Doom-II viri (and maybe others) which put executable code into
video memory.  The problem with this method is that the code will get
overwritten the next time a program uses graphics.  Also, network
cards and devices like the HiCard, as well as EMS cards, put memory
between 0A000h and the ROM BIOS.  I think the MG-2 virus uses memory
here rather than video memory (I'm not sure -- it might use video).

Regarding use of expanded (EMS) and extended memory:
> ...You must use EMS memory driver to do so. ... Some code may be
> placed there too. But it *MUST NOT* be a code which handles
> interrupts. ... So if you set interrupt address to code located in
> expanded memory, a situation when an interrupt occurs but a bank
> where virus resides is switched off the memory space, will result in
> a system crash.  So expanded memory is not the best place for a
> virus.

> If you have extended memory, that is a memory above 0FFFFh segment,
> you can use it only in protected mode of 80286/386/486 processor
> using their segment selectors mechanism. MS DOS runs in real
> processor mode, and you cannot reach code there via real mode's
> interrupt table.

> Surely, some buffer code may be provided which resides in lower
> memory, catches interrupts, switches into protected mode or tells
> EMS driver to place bank with code into memory space, and gives
> control to virus itself.  But if you take into account that
> different computers have different high memory configuration, your
> virus should be extremely intelligent in order to work properly with
> any of them. A virus of size about 20 or 30 Kbytes is not the best
> one. It would not hide for long.

The part of the virus code residing in low memory would not have to be
large at all.  If the EMS driver (EMM.SYS or whatever) is loaded, the
interrupt handler could switch in the bank with the main virus code
and execute whatever it wanted.  I believe I've heard of a virus which
uses expanded memory.  I'm not sure about it, but I would appreciate a
more knowledgeable virus researcher saying whether or not there is one.

NORMALLY, the extended memory on an 80286/386/486 machine cannot be
reached when running in real mode.  HOWEVER, there is a cheat which
allows access to 65520 bytes (64K - 16 bytes) of extended memory just
above segment 10000h.  Microsoft capitalized on this cheat through
their HIMEM.SYS kludge and called it XMS (either eXtended Memory
Specification or eXtra Memory Specification -- I forget which).  I
don't think an interrupt could point there, but a low-memory interrupt
handler could pass control up there while remaining in real mode.  As
for switching to protected or another memory mode from real mode, the
problems involved in switching back and forth between modes would
probably keep a virus which does this from being "successful."

Also,
>From:    [email protected] (Fritz Schneider)
> One problem that may occur is that of BIOS-shadowing. We can no
> longer assume that the BIOS is in ROM at the time that it is
> executed.  Many machines now copy it to faster RAM. It is possible
> that a virus might intercept the BIOS call inside the BIOS itself
> rather than in the interrupt table.

On the machines with which I've worked that have shadow-RAM, the
circuitry of the computer prevents writes to the shadowed BIOS, once
the ROM BIOS has been copied into it.  A virus would not be able to
modify the shadow-RAM.  This may not be true for all shadow-RAM
computers, but it should be.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On a different subject,
>From:    padgett%[email protected] (A. Padgett Peterson)
> ... a response was posted to another comment that you must boot
> cold from an infected floppy before trust is possible even if a
> clean Int 13 (disk access) path is known.

This has to be an unintentional faux pas on Padgett's part.  Trust is
possible only if you cold boot from a KNOWN CLEAN floppy.  I'm sure
that he would not intentionally write that -- at least he'd BETTER
not!  ;-)

Bill Walker ( [email protected] ) |
OAO Corporation                        | "Non sequitur -- your facts are
Arnold Engineering Development Center  |  un-coordinated."
M.S. 120                               |           -- NOMAD
Arnold Air Force Base, TN  37389-9998  |

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 25 Jul 91 19:23:06 +0000
>From:    [email protected] (McAfee Associates)
Subject: Re: CARMEL TntVirus, A Trojan suspect. (PC)

[email protected] ( Mr S. Rahim ) writes:
>I got hold of Carmel Antivirus package through a bulletin board. After
>having installed it on the harddisk two weeks ago, I began to have
>problems. This included EXE and COM files which were working before
>Carmel came on the PC.  Some files hang up while others refuse to run.

Carmel Software Turbo Anti Virus package is a commercial package.  If
you did not purchase your copy or otherwise receive it directly from
them, it could have a virus in it or otherwise be tampered.  TAV has
an "immunize" feature, if I recall correctly, that works by adding
virus marker bytes (the signatures that viruses use to see if a file
is infected) to the end of .COM and .EXE files.  It could be that the
files you immunized are self-checking and recognize that they have
been modified.

>When TntVirus is activated, I performed a scan of the memory with
>McAffee Scan V80, and it reported that P1 Related virus was active in
>memory. Another file relating to the package when run, SCAN revealed
>that Brain was active in memory.

[rest of message deleted...]

TntVirus apparently does not cipher its strings in memory or flush memory
after running.  This would account for the viruses found in memory.

Aryeh Goretsky
McAfee Associates Technical Support

- --
McAfee Associates        | Voice (408) 988-3832 | [email protected]  (business)
4423 Cheeney Street      | FAX   (408) 970-9727 |
Santa Clara, California  | BBS   (408) 988-4004 | [email protected](personal)
95054-0253  USA          | v.32  (408) 988-5190 |
ViruScan/CleanUp/VShield | HST   (408) 988-5138 | CompuServe:  76702,1714

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 25 Jul 91 19:04:49 +0000
>From:    [email protected] (John Francis)
Subject: Re: Philosophy, comments & Re: long and technical (PC)

padgett%[email protected] (A. Padgett Peterson) writes:
[ . . . ]
>       Back to the main subject, the question of authentication of a system
[ . . . ]
>       Given clean and authenticatable periperal paths, integrity
>programs and scanners can be run at any later time with the ability to
>bypass possibly untrustable elements thus rendering all currently
>known stealth techniques useless.
>
>       The authentication task may then be invoked at any time before
>or after the loading of the O/S with expectation of valid results
>being obtained.

I accept the validity of these statements.  I do not, however, accept your
belief that you can get "clean and authenticatable periperal paths" on a PC.

Yes, you could (hypothetically) save the BIOS vector adresses somewhere.
In fact the BIOS already has these - it has to initialize the vector table.
BUT - on 386 or better systems, I can write a "Virtual Machine" emulator
that can fool you into believing you are running on the raw hardware.
This means I can write the ultimate stealth system - undetectable by any
means whatsoever (not quite true, but I don't want to give everything away).
I can then build whatever else I want around this stealth system, protected
by the same disguise.  Any (yes, any) authentication task that was run once
my "Virtual Machine" virus took control would report the system to be virus
free.  That is a really scary thought.

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 25 Jul 91 10:32:11 -0700
>From:    [email protected] (Rob Slade)
Subject: Printer paranoia

Not virus related, but a good example of the odd thinking people get into
when dealing with computer security:

Our submission for the "Chicken Little" award for computer
advertising:

>From the July 8th edition of "Federal Computer Week", page 36:

   "The PS:Refillable Cartridge can be used with nearly

    all ... laser printers ... It is refillable by the

    user and never leaves the user's premises, insuring

    that data security is never compromised."

Laser printer toner cartridges do contain the printer drum.  On
laser toner cartridges the drum is 2 - 3 cm in diameter.  By
dint of extraordinary effort, you should be able to reconstruct
the last 1/3 of the last page to be printed ...

=============
Vancouver          [email protected]   | "If you do buy a
Institute for      [email protected] |  computer, don't
Research into      (SUZY) INtegrity         |  turn it on."
User               Canada V7K 2G6           | Richards' 2nd Law
Security                                    | of Data Security

------------------------------

Date:    Thu, 25 Jul 91 17:46:29 -0400
>From:    Andrew Brennan <[email protected]>
Subject: Virus Scan V57 and V77. (PC)

     I've an interesting problem at the center I am working for.
  Apparently, SCAN stops checking memory for Stoned after V57.  We
  have V57 (in normal use) and can locate Stoned in memory, but it
  is not found on the disks - hard disks or otherwise.  After we
  reset the machine (booting from the hard disk), we have Stoned
  in memory again - not located on the hard disk.
     My immediate assumption was that it was a strain of Stoned
  that was not locatable by the old version - but the basic shape
  of Stoned was locatable in the memory of the machine.  Upon a
  boot from a clean disk, no Stoned anywhere.  I dug out a copy of
  V77 (assuming/hoping that it would locate the virus on the disk)
  only to find that V77 no longer memory-scans for Stoned.  I also
  found that V77 was unable to find Stoned on the same harddisk.
  We don't have V80 and I was unable to retrieve a copy via the
  Internet as there was/is some problem out there that was not
  allowing access outside this site - some server was down ...
     We tried (a suggestion from an outside source) optimizing the
  hard disk - to remove any phantom viral activities(?)  V57 still
  finds Stoned in memory - not on the disk.  V77 doesn't look for
  Stoned in the memory _and_ doesn't find it on the disk.  I will
  be retrieving a copy of V80 ASAP, but I don't know exactly what
  to think in this situation ...

     Andrew.  (brennaaa@duvm)  Drexel Univ.  College of Info Studies.

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 26 Jul 91 10:22:39 +1200
>From:    Robert Davies <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: F-PROT & DOS 5.0 (PC)

[email protected] (Lou Anschuetz) writes:
>Installed DOS5.0 on my machine last night (which works well imho),
>but ran into a problem with F-PROT.  If I attempted to leave the
>F-PROT driver.sys in my config.sys file the machine would freeze
>and complain that INT13 was modified (undoubtedly true).  Has
>anyone found a work-around for this?
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>Lou Anschuetz
>[email protected]

Try shifting the location of the F-Prot driver.sys in your config.sys
file. I got the INT13 message when I first tried F-prot (the second to
most recent version - haven't upgraded yet) but it went away when I
moved the device statement to later in config.sys. It even loads into
high memory.

Robert

------------------------------

Date:    26 Jul 91 09:37:24 +1000
>From:    [email protected]
Subject: New Jerusalem - Help! (PC)

My next-door neighbour has an Commodore Colt XT which has become
infected with a virus ("New Jerusalem").  The hard disc has been
treated with two virus removers, which identified the virus and
supposedly removed it, yet the system still crashes.  After
re-formatting the hard disc and copying fresh files from virus-free
backup discs the virus is still there.

What is the "New Jerusalem" virus,  what does it do,  and how do
you get rid of it?

Please send advice to "[email protected]" and I will pass it on.

------------------------------

Date:    25 Jul 91 19:21:00 +0000
>From:    [email protected] (Craig Ibbotson)
Subject: Re: Anti-Virus software recommendation sought

[email protected] (David Ivens) writes:

>We are considering purchasing a site licence for Virus Buster from
>Leprechaun Software.

>It looks a very good package.

>Any advice?

Byte magazine did a fairly good article on anti-virus programs
this month.  I don't know if they reviewed Virus Buster, but it
sounds familiar.  I would recommend you look there for a reference.

Overall, I believe they recommended ViruScan from MacAfee - this is
a shareware program.  I recently downloaded it and tried it myself -
I think it is very good and plan on sending in my registration.

- --
|Craig Ibbotson, Motorola, Inc.                 ...uunet!motcid!ibbotsonc|
|Cellular Infrastructure Division, Radio Telephone Systems Group         |
|"Is this the Big M - or are we becoming the Big A?"                     |
==========================================================================

------------------------------

Date:    25 Jul 91 23:14:38 -0400
>From:    "Robert McClenon" <[email protected]>
Subject: Terminology and Taxonomy

Terminology 2:  Bacteria

    At least two recent posts have suggested the use of the term
"bacterium" for some sort of malicious program.  (Fortunately at least
everyone agrees that the Emglish plural of this Latin noun is the
Latin plural "bacteria".)  Two posts have suggested exactly opposite
distinctions between viruses and bacteria.  Since the term "bacterium"
is not into mainstream usage and there is not agreement within the
computer security or anti-viral communities as to what it means, I
suggest that its use be avoided.  There is general technical agreement
so far that a code fragment that embeds itself in a program and
replicates by embedding itself in other programs is a virus.  If we
define boot records and similar automagically invoked resources as
programs, then we have a definition that encompasses everything that
computer security researchers normally refer to as viruses.  (In other
words, so-called viruses can be defined as viruses.)  I suggest we
drop any use of the term "bacteria", which merely confuses and
complicates, and focus on distinctions between types of viruses.

         Robert McClenon
         Neither my employer nor anyone else paid me to say this.

------------------------------

Date:    26 Jul 91 03:03:36 +0000
>From:    [email protected] (Robert J Woodhead)
Subject: Re: Revised Product Test- - Virex (Mac)

[email protected] (Chris McDonald ASQNC-TWS-R-SO) writes:

>The  registration form received with the software gave one two
>options to obtain any future upgrades to the product.  The first option  was  a
>$75.00  Annual  Update  Service.   For  this  fee  Microcom  (then known as HJC
>Software) would provide automatic updates for a year.  The second option was to
>purchase  single updates for $15.00 upon notification of any VIREX new release.
>I chose the second option given  that  VIREX  at  version  2.0  identified  and
>repaired  all  known Macintosh viruses as of that time.  I wanted to build some
>historical knowledge as to the frequency with which updates might occur  before
>committing  myself  to the automatic annual fee.

A simple way to determine this is scroll down the opening intro info
that is displayed when you start the program.  At the bottom is a
detailed revision history for Virex -- and you can see that it has
in the past been updated more than 5 times a year.

This year has been slow -- and in this business, that's the kind
of year you want to have.

The other advantage of the auto-update is that it is faster; you get
the new disk as soon as possible, protecting you against a new virus
you might not have heard about yet.

Disclaimer : I'm the guy that Bob Capon of Microcom (then HJC) had
to beg to write the program.  I was sure that there wasn't a market
for it.  He called me every day for a month.  I finally did it to
get him to stop calling.

- --
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs.   [email protected] |
| ``If you want to stab someone in the back, Bernard, you must first get   |
|   behind them!'' -- Sir Humphrey Appleby on the mechanics of politics.   |

------------------------------

Date:    25 Jul 91 23:13:32 -0400
>From:    "Robert McClenon" <[email protected]>
Subject: Toward a Taxonomy of Malicious Programs

William Walker proposes, borrowing from Eldar A. Musaev, the following
taxonomy of malicious software:

>Malicious Program Definitions
>
>The functional criteria for classifying malicious programs are:
>I.   Replication
>     1.  Non-replicator
>         A program which does not copy itself.
>     2.  Dependent Replicator
>         A program which copies itself only when the host program
is
>         executed.
>     3.  Independent Replicator
>         A program that, once started (e.g. TSR), could copy
>itself
>         continuously without outside assistance.
>
>II.  Host Basis
>     1.  Standalone (non-host-based)
>         A program which does not require another program to help
>it
>         run and/or spread.
>     2.  Host-based
>         a.  Spawning
>             A program which leaves the host program intact, but
>runs
>             before the host program and calls or "spawns to" it.
>         b.  Overwriting
>             A program which overwrites a portion of the host
>program
>             or deletes and replaces it entirely, so that it is
>run
>             instead of the original program.
>         c.  Parasitic
>             A program which attaches itself to the host program,
>             leaving it functionally intact.

    This scheme is extremely useful as a first step toward defining a
taxonomy of viruses and other malicious software.  My only structural
criticism of it is that it is based on an exhaustive multiplicative
enumeration.  In other words, it is an N-dimensional array.  The
basic data structure of biological (e.g., Linnaean) taxonomy is a tree
rather than an array.  The empty slots in the array illustrate that
the array is not the best data structure.  (In biology, the types of
teeth often characterize mammals.  They never characterize reptiles,
which have undifferentiated teeth, or birds, which are generally
toothless.  The types of beaks sometimes characterize birds, but never
mammals.)

    Here is a very preliminary try at a tree-based taxonomy of
malicious software:

1.  Standalone Programs

1.1  Standalone Non-replicating Programs

1.1.1  Non-overwriting Trojans
    Ex:  ARC 5.1.3

1.1.2  Overwriting Trojans
    Ex:  Twelve Tricks

1.2  Standalone Replicators

1.2.1     Single-System Standalone Independent Replicators

    Ex:  WABBIT  (a prank at RPI which spawned multiple tasks
until it crashed the host).  Since WABBIT is the prime
representative of this taxon which depends on rapid reproduction,
I propose that they be generically called rabbits.

1.2.2     Multi-System Standalone Independent Replicators:  Worms
    Ex:  Morris Internet Worm

1.2.3     Multi-System Standalone User-Dependent Replicators:
Trojan Worms
    Ex:  CHRISTMA

2.   Host-Program-Dependent Programs

    (I think that all of these replicate, because otherwise they
are either not malicious or are standalone malicious programs.)

2.1  Media Infectors

2.1.1     Boot-Sector Infectors
    Ex:  Stoned

2.1.2     Media Resource Infectors
    Ex:  WDEF

2.2  Operating System Infectors
    Ex:  Lehigh

2.3  Application Infectors

2.3.1     Spawning Application Infectors
    Ex:  AIDS II, Twin-351

2.3.2     Overwriting Application Infectors
    Ex:  382 Recovery

2.3.3     Parasitic Application Infectors

2.3.3.1   Dependent Parasitic Application Infectors
    Ex:  Vienna

2.3.3.2   Semi-dependent Parasitic Application Infectors
    (These require invocation of an infected application to go TSR
but then continue to infect other applications.)
    Ex:  Jerusalem

    I suggest that this or a similar tree structure is the
appropriate way to categorize malicious software.  I admit that I
this list is not complete and that subcategories and occasionally
categories need to be added.  In particular, where should we put a
flip-flop virus like Tequila?  Is it 2.1.n+1, 2.3.n+1, or 2.4?

         Robert McClenon
         Neither my employer nor anyone else paid me to say this.

------------------------------

Date:    25 Jul 91 23:36:35 -0400
>From:    Kevin Dean <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Self-scanning executables (PC)

A friend of mine, Jeff Boyd ([email protected]), pointed me to
this discussion when the subject of self-scanning executables came up
a few weeks ago.  Last year, I developed an anti-virus algorithm that
does a CRC check on the disk image of the running program.  This CRC
is stored within the executable itself, so in order to work, a set of
equations have to be solved to determine the original CRC.

Cracking the algorithm is not a trivial task: a virus has one chance
in four billion (2^32) of successfully infecting a program or, if it
decides to fool the algorithm by changing the stored CRC, would lock
up a 386 for hours bordering on days to find and change it.

The algorithm, supporting code, and supporting executables have all
been released to the public domain.  I have asked Jim Wright, the file
manager for VIRUS-L, to post it on the VIRUS-L server.  In the
meantime, if anyone would like a copy, drop me a note and I'll send
you the package in UU-encoded form.  If anyone would like to make it
available for FTP anywhere, drop me a note and I'll send it along.

- ---- Kevin Dean ----
[email protected]
"If the implications aren't immediately obvious, don't ask."

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End of VIRUS-L Digest [Volume 4 Issue 131]
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