Summary

This virus got widespread in April 1996, because it was available in an infected file called CANCER01.ZIP in ftp site wuarchive.wustl.edu.

In addition to the infected files inside CANCER01.ZIP, Major virus has been spread in files called TAP.EXE and FLASH.EXE (PKLited dropper).

Additional Details

Major tries to interact with the Major BBS system. Without further information on this BBS system, it is impossible to tell what the virus actually tries to do. In any case it tries to access files \BBSV6\BBSAUDIT.DAT and \BBSV6\BBSUSR.DAT.

Major contains these encrypted texts:

The Major BBS Virus created by Major tomwn to DOS Puppet Image Gnat Minion Cindy F'nor
As many other memory-resident viruses, Major will conflict with some memory managers.

Major virus has been confirmed to be in the wild in several countries.

[Analysis: Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure]