Viruses: Monkeying Around with Disk Drives

EVAS has recently seen a number of systems returned for repair demonstrating 
floppy and hard drive failures.  Upon examination we found that the systems 
were infected with various viruses.  The viruses present were of the type 
designed to corrupt the boot records of both floppy diskettes and hard drives: 
Monkey, NYB, Bloody and Form.

There are two major types of viruses that infect PCs.  One, the boot record 
type we have seen here, destroys the integrity of floppy and/or hard drives by 
infecting and corrupting the boot records.  The other infects programs, 
executable (.exe and .com) files, and most often corrupts the file header 
section, rendering the files unusable.  In most, but not all cases, anti-virus 
software can detect and repair these files.  Systems can be infected with 
viruses only through direct contact with infected media.  Virus transmission 
occurs when an infected system disk is used to boot the machine or when an 
infected data disk is left in the machine and is present when boot up occurs.  
The viruses first enter the system memory from the infected media, then 
normally place themselves on the C drive.  Thereafter, the virus will remain 
resident in the machine until removed with an anti-virus program.  The virus 
may be activated either upon boot up or on a triggering event.  Viruses can 
infect any media worked on in the system, immediately or at an arbitrary time, 
and can be transferred to another PC in the same manner.

In the cases mentioned above, EVAS located and successfully removed the viruses
involved.  The systems were restored to their original configuration and all 
data was saved.  Had the systems been infected by file-altering viruses, the 
results may not have been as successful and valuable data files could have been
lost.  We recommend that you consider installing Norton Anti-Virus software to 
protect systems against malicious or accidental virus infections.

When you consider the time lost to repair and reconfiguration and the potential
loss of data files, the addition of anti-virus software is not only beneficial 
but economical.  

If Norton Anti-Virus is ordered for your CompuSight system, it will be 
installed by EVAS as a TSR.  As a TSR, the software can monitor all incoming 
media for viruses and protect the system against infection.  Primary 
maintenance of the software onsists of the downloading, on a regular basis, of 
updated virus profiles from the Symantec BBS.  Norton can currently detect and 
inoculate against 2,638 viruses.  Monthly updates are posted to the BBS and 
its phone numbers are listed in the software manual.  Maintained properly, 
Norton Anti-Virus should prevent the majority of infections and stop viruses 
from monkeying around with your drives and data. 

