Sylvia

Summary

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This virus is a bit unusual, to say the least. It contains the following message:

This      program is   infected           by a  HARMLESS          Text-Virus V2.1  Send a FUNNY postcard to : Sylvia Verkade,     Duinzoom 36b,     3235 CD Rockanje     The Netherlands.  You might get an ANTIVIRUS program.....  

It will display this message when an infected program is executed, but if the above text is tampered with, the following message, (which is stored in an encrypted form) will appear instead:

FUCK YOU LAMER !!!!          system halted...$  

Some people have a weird sense of humor...

Removal

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Automatic action

Once detected, the F-Secure security product will automatically disinfect the suspect file by either deleting it or renaming it.

More

More information on scanning and removal options available in your F-Secure product can be found in the Help Center.

You may also refer to the Knowledge Base on the F-Secure Community site for more information.

Contact Support

For further assistance, F-Secure customers can request support online via the Request support or the Chat forms on our Home - Global site.

Technical Details

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Two versions are known, only slightly different - possibly modified to avoid some anti-virus program. When an infected program is run, the virus will seek out up to 5 .COM files to infect. It will search drive C: and the current drive. The three system files, COMMAND.COM, IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM are not infected. The virus adds 1301 bytes to the beginning of the files it infects (and also 31 bytes to the end), but does no other damage. The girl mentioned above exists, but she says that she has no idea who the author is, although there is a rumor he is her ex-boyfriend.