Ping-Pong

Classification

Ping-Pong, Bouncing Ball

Summary

The Ping-Pong virus (also called "Bouncing Ball" or "Italian") was probably the most common and best known boot sector virus for a while, although the Stoned virus now outnumbers it.

Removal

Based on the settings of your F-Secure security product, it will either move the file to the quarantine where it cannot spread or cause harm, or remove it.

A False Positive is when a file is incorrectly detected as harmful, usually because its code or behavior resembles known harmful programs. A False Positive will usually be fixed in a subsequent database update without any action needed on your part. If you wish, you may also:

Check for the latest database updates
First check if your F-Secure security program is using the latest updates, then try scanning the file again.
Submit a sample
After checking, if you still believe the file is incorrectly detected, you can submit a sample of it for re-analysis.
Note: If the file was moved to quarantine, you need to collect the file from quarantine before you can submit it.
Exclude a file from further scanning
If you are certain that the file is safe and want to continue using it, you can exclude it from further scanning by the F-Secure security product.
Note: You need administrative rights to change the settings.

Technical Details

An infected diskette will contain 1K in "bad clusters".

When this virus activates, a small "ball" starts bouncing around the screen, but in most cases no serious damage occurs.

There is one small bug in the virus code, which causes a crash on '286 machines (and also V20, '386 and '486). The reason is that the author used the "MOV CS,AX" instruction, which only exists on '88 and '86 processors.

Variant:Typo

This variant appeared in Israel. There the effect of the virus has been drastically changed. Instead of displaying a bouncing ball, the virus introduces typing errors in all text going out to the printer.