Corner is the first macro virus to infect Microsoft Project
application. This virus infects both Project and Word and can travel
between them.
When an infected document is opened to Microsoft Word 97 or 2000,
P98M/Corner.A checks if Microsoft Project is running. If it is, it
gets infected.
The Word part of the virus is a simple class infector. It spreads
when an infected document is closed. At this time it sets the Office
2000 security settings to low, disables the "Tools/Macros" menu and
turns off the macro virus protection. After that the virus replicates
to all opened documents.
Corner is not able to infect Microsoft Word 2000, unless the user
has first changed the security settings to medium or low.
To infect Project, the virus adds a new blank project and inserts the
virus code to the "ThisProject" class module.
When an infected document is opened to Microsoft Project 98, Corner.A
infects Word application, even if it is not running.
The MS Project part of the virus is not resident, and it does not
infect the global project. The virus replicates during the project
deactivation (after an infected project has been opened).
The virus infects Word application by opening it and inserting the
virus code in the global template's class module "ThisDocument". This
process is hidden from the user and the user can't see the infection
of Word.
Corner.A virus contains the following comments at the end of its code:
'I never realized the lengths I'd have to go
'All the darkest corners of a sense
'I didn't know
'Just for one moment
'hearing someone call
'Looked beyond the day in hand
'There's nothing there at all
'Project98/Word97-2k Closer
The text is from Joy Division's song "Twenty-four hours", taken from
their 1980 album titled "Closer".
Corner does not do anything but replicate.
[Analysis: Katrin Tocheva and Sami Rautiainen, F-Secure]
