May 1999
Soft Serve Direct
Box 389, Magrath,
Alberta, Canada T0K 1JO |
Phone (403) 388-4332
Fax (403) 758-3505
|
|
|
isaster Recovery - Be Prepared ..
April 26, 1999 on the anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster the W95.CIH
Chernobyl virus struck in Southern Alberta. Several computers were protected by anti-virus
software or disinfected before any damage to files and hardware occurred. Two computers
were not so lucky. The flash BIOS chips in these two PC's were overwritten with invalid
information, making it impossible to boot the computers without replacing the BIOS chips
with an updated program. Not really expensive, just a one week wait and about $70 each to
fix. The data on the hard drives were overwritten with zeros as well, wiping out all the
original data.
"The W95.CIH virus, often referred as the CIH or the Chernobyl virus, was
first discovered in June of 1998 in Taiwan. According to the Taipei authorities, the CIH
virus was written by a 24 year old man named Chen Ing-hau (note the name of the virus
derived from his initials). CIH is a very destructive virus with a payload that
destroys your data. On April 26, 1999, the payload triggered for the first time, and
caused many computer users to loose their data. In Korea, it was estimated as many as one
million computers were affected resulting in more then $250 million in damages .."
For full report see the Symantec Norton Anti-Virus website at:
www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.html
All AOpen computers sold by SSDirectlude a scanner version of the acclaimed Norton
Anti-Virus program. The only problem is that a) the program must be first installed on
your computer, and b) the virus definition files must be kept up to date. This is
currently a free service from Symantec (at least in the first year). With the v4.0 version
of Norton Anti-Virus, you can even automatically access the latest definition files by
clicking the LiveUpdate! button. You can also visit the internet site directly and
download the latest files for your version .. from the SARC 'Symantec Antivirus Research
Center' Download Updates (www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.html) webpage.
And finally, backup any files you can't restore from other sources. You'll be glad you
did! No need to say more.
Quotation Start/End
"[Black socks never get dirty] I have started showering with my socks on in the
morning. It saves washing them all the time and it helps keep my feet dry." ER
| | |
