Threat description
When an infected file is run, it will infect a single .COM file in the current directory. The virus activates on three dates - June 6th, November 18th and November 22nd. On those dates it will display the message:
Kennedy er d:d - l'nge leve "The Dead Kennedys"
There have been reports that infection by this virus may cause FAT corruption, crosslinking of files and loss of clusters, but I have not been able to verify this.
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Variant:Danish Tiny.163
This was for a while the shortest virus known - only 163 bytes long. It does nothing but replicate. Like the original Kennedy virus, this variant has only been reported in Denmark. It is somewhat carelessly written - it does not close the files it opens, for example. Several related viruses (177, 180 and 251 bytes) are also known.
Variant:Stigmata
A 1000 byte encrypted variant, which contains little but a message to certain virus writers and anti-virus developers.
Variant:Brenda
This 256 byte variant contains the text:
C) '92, Stingray/VIPER Luv, Brenda
Variant:Danish Tiny.476
This virus is also known as Black Wind. It was originally found in Estonia in the beginning of 1994. Afterwards, this virus has been reported to be in the wild in several Northern European countries. Like the original Danish_Tiny, this new variant is a direct action infector that targets COM files. The virus is encrypted with a variable key.
Danish_Tiny.476 increases the size of infected programs by 476 bytes. It activates on the 6th day of any month, at which time it formats the hard disk's first track, overwriting the MBR code and the partition information. This makes the hard disk effectively inaccessible. After this, the virus displays the following text and hangs the computer:
BLACK WIND VIRUS... Copyright (C) 1992, Destructive Technologies, Unlimited.
[Danish Tiny.476 analysis: Mikko Hypponen, F-Secure]
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