This is a small and tricky boot sector virus.It spreads like a typical boot virus: if only infects a hard drive if you boot with an infected floppy in drive A:. After that it will infect all floppies that are accessed in the machine.The code of the virus contains several little tricks, and it seems to be written by an experienced programmer.
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.
On floppy disks, the virus formats an extra track and stores the original boot sector there. On hard drive, the original MBR is stored on sector 8.The end of the virus contains this unencrypted text which is never displayed:
SPIRIT (c) MW
Spirit does nothing besides replicating.Spirit was reported to be in the wild in the Netherlands in March 1996 and in the USA and Finland in April 1996.