🚀 go-pugleaf

lvandyke@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Lee Van Dyke) writes:

> I have just been informed of a virus in command.com (47,845 4-9-91) of
> Dos 5.0. Can anyone give me info on this?

Please, check you source of information, before spreading rumors like
that... We had enough of PKZ204C and definitively to not need the same
story repeated for DOS. Also, please read the FAQ, question F4, in
order to learn how to report suspected virus infections.

In your particular case:

1) Where do you have this information form? The local pirate BBS, an
unmoderated newsgroup, a friend, a newspaper, a computer magazine,
Microsoft's tech support?

2) What does the information say exactly? If it says nothing more that
COMMAND.COM in DOS 5.0 is rumored to contain a virus, then you can
safely ignore it. Rumors like that appear with every new DOS version.

3) What -facts- support the claim that there is a virus? Does any
scanner report it? Does it replicate?

4) Does your information source report a virus infection of a
particular site, of the system diskettes distributed by a particular
OEM vendor, of the diskettes distributed by Microsoft?

5) If there has been an official report about an infection from the
supplier, for which geographical area does it apply? The net
distributed your message all over the world.

6) At last, -which- DOS? MS-DOS, produced by Microsoft, or PC-DOS,
produced by IBM?

All in all, your message is either based on some local infection, or
(more likely) is just a rumor. Until it is confirmed (and I doubt that
it will ever be), just ignore it.

Regards,
Vesselin
- -- 
Vesselin Vladimirov Bontchev          Virus Test Center, University of Hamburg
Tel.:+49-40-54715-224, Fax: +49-40-54715-226      Fachbereich Informatik - AGN
< PGP 2.1 public key available on request. > Vogt-Koelln-Strasse 30, rm. 107 C
e-mail: bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de    D-2000 Hamburg 54, Germany