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Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:30 pm
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Both SETUP.COM and COMMAND.COM on Disk1 are infected, I've disinfected them and put them back onto the floppy and uploaded the archive again. Please test it out and report back.
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:36 pm
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Well I am guessing it's in the bootsector then. I could move the files to a clean floppy image but then we'll lose the bootsector and then it can't be booted.
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:59 pm
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Rather pointless to say, but MBR = Master Boot Record, i.e bootsector... i.e exactly what I said . Any ideas on how to clean it out and keep a working boot record?
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 8:17 pm
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If it's only the MBR, would the virus infect a newly created MBR? If not (and this has sys.com), adding a 2nd virtual floppy to a VM and then running sys B: should create a clean boot record, correct? After that then just copying the contents of original infected image to the newly created image should create a almost 1:1 copy of the image, only minus the virus..
Edit: Seems the disk isn't even bootable...meh.
Edit 2: Here's a fixed version. It does have the PC-DOS 7 RTM MBR, however all the files are from the PC-DOS 7.0 Guinan v3 disk 1.
The way I fixed it was using the disk 1 files by extracting them then creating a new disk using WinImage with those files (and no boot record). Then I installed PC-DOs 7 RTM into a VM. From there I loaded the disk image containing only the files and copied them to a directory on the VM's C: drive. Then format A: /q. After that copy C:\PCDOS7BETA\*.* A:\*.*. Created a bootable PC-DOS 7 Beta v3 install disk that actually works, and is virus free.
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 2:57 am
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compgeke wrote:
If it's only the MBR, would the virus infect a newly created MBR? If not (and this has sys.com), adding a 2nd virtual floppy to a VM and then running sys B: should create a clean boot record, correct? After that then just copying the contents of original infected image to the newly created image should create a almost 1:1 copy of the image, only minus the virus..
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:32 am
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Nice find! Do we know that old virii don't have damaged executable files inside the images on FTP like deleting a few functions for own code purposes? I assume NEXTSTEP and Solaris and the like are clean.
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 10:35 am
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The DOS virus won't effect anything if it's on a 64-bit host typically as 64-bit OS won't run 16-bit programs, even more so if it's Windows NT instead of DOS-based system as NT is completely different.
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:37 pm
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z180 wrote:
Nice find! Do we know that old virii don't have damaged executable files inside the images on FTP like deleting a few functions for own code purposes? I assume NEXTSTEP and Solaris and the like are clean.
A virus has to be run before it can do any damage to files. Even if it were run on the FTP Server, I highly doubt it would be able to infect .rar archives.
Post subject: Re: Malware in PC-DOS! Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:13 pm
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As every description says, it's a DOS virus, which means it only affects DOS environments. That most likely includes Win9x as well but it depends on how the virus works. It won't affect NT environments since the bootsector is different and its boot routine differs as well. A virus can't just attach itself to whatever com-file and expect it to be run if the OS running is completely different. And no, it does not infect rar-files since it only attaches itself to com-files and bootsector, not rar-files. Even if it were to attach to a rar-file it would never run, and the rar-file would indicate damage when unpacked or tested.
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