Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!sarrel From: sarrel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Marc Sarrel) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: new virus??? Message-ID:Date: 5 Dec 88 03:53:10 GMT Sender: sarrel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Distribution: comp Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 34 Well, here we go again, folks... I think I may have found a new virus. Interferon 3.1 did not detect it, but some strange (if benign) things have been going on. I first suspected a problem when three of my floppy disks (which I hadn't look at in a month or two) suddenly had new disk icons. The new icons resembled a "Hello, my name is ____" sticker. I tried to reformat them, but it didn't help. Then, I decided to poke around a newly formatted disk with resedit. The only file that it showed on the disk was the desktop file. However, resedit wouldn't let me open the file. It gave me error -49. IM says that this is "The read/write permission of only one access path to a file can allow writing", but I'm not sure exactly what this means. But it gets better. If I do a Get Info on the dektop file (from within resedit) it says that the Creator of the file is ERIK. Does this name sound familiar? However, note the spelling. I believe that the SCORES related resources was ERIC. Anyway, there is one more piece of information. If I try to do another erase disk, on one that already has the new icon, when it asks if I want to erease the disk named XXX, it adds the words "facade by Greg Marriot" to the name of the disk in the dialog box (but not on the desktop). Does anyone have an explanation for these occurences? Is it really a virus, or can the symptoms be explained in other ways. I used virus detective to check my hard disk, and the only file that seemed to be infected with ERIK was the desktop. Of course, it could be hiding under a psuedonym. Please don't accuse me of being alarmist. The last thing I want to do is start a flame war like we had not too long ago about the nVIR virus. --marc