Select countryLysaker, October 20 1998
Norman Data Defense Systems has received numerous reports of infections worldwide of the virus W97M/Class.D, as well as sporadic infections of the W97M/Class.Q virus. This virus is a macrovirus which infects Microsoft™ Word 8.0 documents. At the moment we know 19 variants of the Class virus, but more variants are expected.
These Word 8.0 viruses (Word 8.0 is a part of Microsoft™ Office97) are polymorphic and difficult to detect. The series of viruses is written by a person identifying himself as "VicodinES". This person is responsible for other viruses as well.
The Class viruses analyzed so far are not particularly dangerous or destructive. Most ot the variants display a message box with some text at certain days. This text as well as the day, are different for most variants.
The difficulty with the Class viruses is their polymorphic behaviour. The appearance of the viruscode changes from infection to infection on different systems, as it is mostly using the user-specific data (e.g. UserName) to create its polymorphic ability. This makes detection using current methods difficult and will require substantial technical knowledge from the virus control developer.
Norman Data Defense Systems has a version of Norman Virus Control (version 4.55) available that is capable of detecting these viruses as well as removing them. The scheduled release for version 4.60 will of course also include this functionality, and more.
About Norman:
Norman Data Defense Systems Holding ASA is one of the worlds leading companies within the field of computer security. With products for risk analysis, virus control, access control, encryption, back-up, the company plays an important role in the data industry. Large customers include Deutsche Telecom, Statoil, Central Fidelity, Deutsche Aeorospace and Westpac Bank. The company has industrial agreements with among others Hewlett Packard and Siemens Nixdorf. Norman Data Defense Systems has about 200 employees and is represented by subsidiaries and strategic alliances in USA, Europe, Asia and Australia. The company is headquarted at Lysaker outside Oslo, Norway.