3 things with Viruses I dont understand. Anyone?

[Bigtopofun]

Hi,

I recently tested a lot of old floppies in my Amiga and I believe some of them were infected with virus. I have now stopped going thru them since I dont want to spread this around more than whats allready possibly been done, and I dont know much about viruses and how the work. Still have about 1000 to go so..

System:
A1200, no expansions or HDD. No DF0, only using external drive DF1.

My (perhaps stupid) questions

1) Can my A1200 iniany way carry a virus by itself? Cold start, no disk in drive.. can it still be stored somewhere?

2) I found a working prog, Virus Checker 5, from an Amiga Shopper Disk. Its basically an running app in workbench that checks the drive each time I put a disk into it. Sometimes is says that the bootsequence is nonstandard, potential virus, and it lets me restore the code. I click yes and it does its thing and I just move on to the next disk. Is this the way to go? Or am I using the utility wrong? Many threads tell to "use this program to get it away" but not how you actually should do it in a safe way..

3) If I format a floppy, will it for sure wipe any viruses? Also, can a virus get on to a writedisabled disk?

/Bigtopofun

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Bigtopofun

Hi,

I recently tested a lot of old floppies in my Amiga and I believe some of them were infected with virus. I have now stopped going thru them since I dont want to spread this around more than whats allready possibly been done, and I dont know much about viruses and how the work. Still have about 1000 to go so..

System:
A1200, no expansions or HDD. No DF0, only using external drive DF1.

My (perhaps stupid) questions

1) Can my A1200 iniany way carry a virus by itself? Cold start, no disk in drive.. can it still be stored somewhere?

2) I found a working prog, Virus Checker 5, from an Amiga Shopper Disk. Its basically an running app in workbench that checks the drive each time I put a disk into it. Sometimes is says that the bootsequence is nonstandard, potential virus, and it lets me restore the code. I click yes and it does its thing and I just move on to the next disk. Is this the way to go? Or am I using the utility wrong? Many threads tell to "use this program to get it away" but not how you actually should do it in a safe way..

3) If I format a floppy, will it for sure wipe any viruses? Also, can a virus get on to a writedisabled disk?

/Bigtopofun

Once you switch your Amiga off via power supply, no virus can remain in memory.

Be careful using a Virus Checker. Not all non-standard bootblocks are harmful, many disks have a custom bootblock and without it, they won't boot.

Only allow your virus checker to remove and replace a bootblock it has physically identified to you what it is, like Byte Bandit for instance or SCA Virus.

If the Virus Checker doesn't tell you what it is, its less likely to be a virus.

If you format a disk thats it for a virus as the entire disk is overwritten. However if you QUICK Format, that is not always the case as a quick format modifies the root directory and sometimes the bootblock and nothing else.

And no, no virus can bypass the write protect tab, if the disk is write protected, its protected from virus infection.

[chip]

A virus can infect a whole system like Classic Workbench, so that it is resident somewhere, ready to infect other exes ?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by chip

A virus can infect a whole system like Classic Workbench, so that it is resident somewhere, ready to infect other exes ?

System:
A1200, no expansions or HDD. No DF0, only using external drive DF1.

I'd like to know how!

[brian_p]

Originally Posted by Bigtopofun

Hi,

I recently tested a lot of old floppies in my Amiga and I believe some of them were infected with virus. I have now stopped going thru them since I dont want to spread this around more than whats allready possibly been done, and I dont know much about viruses and how the work. Still have about 1000 to go so..

System:
A1200, no expansions or HDD. No DF0, only using external drive DF1.

My (perhaps stupid) questions

1) Can my A1200 iniany way carry a virus by itself? Cold start, no disk in drive.. can it still be stored somewhere?

2) I found a working prog, Virus Checker 5, from an Amiga Shopper Disk. Its basically an running app in workbench that checks the drive each time I put a disk into it. Sometimes is says that the bootsequence is nonstandard, potential virus, and it lets me restore the code. I click yes and it does its thing and I just move on to the next disk. Is this the way to go? Or am I using the utility wrong? Many threads tell to "use this program to get it away" but not how you actually should do it in a safe way..

3) If I format a floppy, will it for sure wipe any viruses? Also, can a virus get on to a writedisabled disk?

/Bigtopofun

1) Theoretically a virus may stay in memory for a short while after you've powered of the system so a quick on/off again might not clear it completely. If you know that you have worked with a floppy that was infected it's a good idea to wait 10sec after powering off the system before powering it on again.



2) I myself prefer VirusZ as far as antivirus software goes, never the less you should download the latest xvs.library to catch more viruses.

[Bigtopofun]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Once you switch your Amiga off via power supply, no virus can remain in memory.

Be careful using a Virus Checker. Not all non-standard bootblocks are harmful, many disks have a custom bootblock and without it, they won't boot.

Only allow your virus checker to remove and replace a bootblock it has physically identified to you what it is, like Byte Bandit for instance or SCA Virus.

If the Virus Checker doesn't tell you what it is, its less likely to be a virus.

If you format a disk thats it for a virus as the entire disk is overwritten. However if you QUICK Format, that is not always the case as a quick format modifies the root directory and sometimes the bootblock and nothing else.

And no, no virus can bypass the write protect tab, if the disk is write protected, its protected from virus infection.

Hi,

Clear and informative. Thanks!

[Bigtopofun]

Originally Posted by brian_p

1) Theoretically a virus may stay in memory for a short while after you've powered of the system so a quick on/off again might not clear it completely. If you know that you have worked with a floppy that was infected it's a good idea to wait 10sec after powering off the system before powering it on again.



2) I myself prefer VirusZ as far as antivirus software goes, never the less you should download the latest xvs.library to catch more viruses.

Hi, thanks.

I try to get VirusZ as soon as I get my CF drive installed. Right now I have no way of getting new software or anything new to the amiga. Are there any antivirus software still being updated for classic OS? I guess the library xvs is like a manual update.

[Bigtopofun]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I'd like to know how!

Hi,

Well the old internal drive was bad so I removed it until I get my new one. So right now Ive just my old external floppyunit connected and all disks boot from that. In workbench the DF0 just says ??? But otherwise no problem. Alot of diskswapping though.

[brian_p]

Originally Posted by Bigtopofun

Hi, thanks.

I try to get VirusZ as soon as I get my CF drive installed. Right now I have no way of getting new software or anything new to the amiga. Are there any antivirus software still being updated for classic OS? I guess the library xvs is like a manual update.

xvs.library is an external virus library that several antivirus software use to catch viruses they don't know internally. It's the most up-to-date thing out there, even if it's over 15 years old at this point.

[daxb]

You should find everything about Amiga virus here incl. software: https://www.vht-dk.dk/