...The nVIR Virus

This is another Macintosh generic application infector that was created in
1987, originally in Hamburg, Germany, but is now appearing in many different
varieties, because hackers have had the benefit of its source code being 
published.  It is a particularly virulent virus that can infect all the
programs in a system in a few minutes.

The symptoms are variable because of the different varieties of nVIR in
circulation.  The user with MacinTalk may well get a voice message saying,
"Don't Panic," others will hear a beep from the speaker when an applications
program is opened, files may disappear--or there may be little or no warning
before the system crashes.

nVIR spread rapidly across the United States when it was posted by a West
German hacker to the CompuServe network.

The maverick program comprised a few pages of Pascal and about 50 lines of
assembly code.  The virus itself was a small piece of code disguised as a
resource that inserted itself into a system trap handler.


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"Computer Viruses, Worms, Data Diddlers, Killer Programs, and Other Threats
To Your System: What They Are, How They Work, And How To Defend your PC, Mac,
Or Mainframe."  McAfee, John and Colin Haynes. (C) 1989 by John McAfee and
Colin Haynes.  St. Martin's Press.  p. 104-105.
