F-Secure Virus Descriptions : Y2K Virus

There is no virus detected by this name by F-Secure anti-virus products. However, the media sometimes talks about the 'Year 2000 virus', refering the problems computers will encounter when the two last digits of the current year change to 00 on the 1st of January, 2000.

For example, many programs calculate the age of a person by substracting current year from the birth year (for example, 97-65 = person is 32 years old). Such a calculation on January 1st, 2000 would tell that this person is -65 years old.

More information on these problems is available in the web at http://www.year2000.com/

To learn more on how F-Secure' products work on and after year 2000, please read http://www.F-Secure.com/news/year2000.shtml

Suprisingly, there are very few computer viruses which activate during new year 2000, and none of them is known to be in the wild.

Do note that exists some trojans that try do to something related to Y2K. These have nothing to do with the Y2K problem itself.

For an example, see Y2KCount trojan at: http://www.F-Secure.com/v-descs/y2kcount.shtml

[Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure]