Memphis.98.MMS Virus Hoax

Memphis.98.MMS Virus Hoax As you know, the world of computers is becoming more complex every minute with new technologies arising all of the time. Unfortunately, some of this technology can be used against us. According to McAfee Associates and Symantec officials, there has been a new virus that has been discovered. According to them, the current virus detection and removal software that they sell CANNOT detect this virus on systems running Windows 98. This is due to Windows 98’s new memory management system features. According to McAfee Associates, this virus was written in the Assembly language, and loads itself in to the system’s upper memory. Because of a flaw in the Windows 98 Memory Management System, MMS, this virus can load itself into a part of the upper memory block which cannot be accessed or scanned by either McAfee ViruScan, or Symantec’s Norton Anti-Virus. Other virus protection utilities have not reported such errors, and have not been tested either. Microsoft is aware of this error and is currently working on a patch. Unfortunately, users with Windows 98 already installed have no choice but to continue running the OS and can only hope that this virus does not attack their system. It is believed that a person with access to Microsoft’s source code may have written this virus, or leaked out the source code to somebody else, who wrote the virus. The characteristics of the Memphis.98.MMS are not full known, but certain characteristics are. OS: Windows 98 (4.10.1998) Memory Resistant: Yes Polymorphic: Yes Repairable: No Encrypted: No Infects: Floppy\Boot records All EXE files that are ran while virus is in memory Origin: Unknown Virus Size: Unknown Actions: The Memphis.98.MMS virus performs several actions while active, including: Slow disk I/O, spontaneous rebooting and monitor “flickering”. Also, you may receive a Windows error which says: “Error in MMS. Please reboot and retry. If this error continues to occur, please contact Micros0ft, and report the Memphis.98.M MS error. Thank you, and enjoy Windows98.” Extras: You may notice the zero, 0, instead of an o in Micros0ft, which indicates that this is a malicious program. The origin of the virus is unknown, but is believed to be written in the western United States, because that was where the first bunch of virus activity were reported. One of the most mysterious characteristics of this virus is that it does not affect any Microsoft applications, such as MS Visual C++, VB, J++, Office97, Flight Sim, Frontpage97, Internet Explorer, and any other Microsoft product. Please send an e-mail to VirusWatch@juno.com if you detect any strange virus like activity or any more information about virus. Also, please e-mail if you suspect that there is a new virus that people do not know of. -VirusWatch