Descriptions of viruses, other malicious programs and Hoaxes

Below are some of the most frequently reported viruses, other malicious programs and hoaxes, and some general documents that may be of interest regarding this.

Note that hoaxes are not considered as traditional malicious programs as they do no damage to computers. However, hoaxes may be very annoying as they often result in lots of unnecessary emails being sent.

Choose Character

Click on a link below to find descriptions for that particular character. Malicious programs are listed by full name, "popular name" and common aliases. E.g. W32/Ska.Worm will be listed under: 

• H: as Happy99
• S: as Ska
• W: as W32/Ska

Search in virus descriptions

Syntax used in the names of malicious programs

In general one may say that the letters/numbers before a slash represent the platform/application which the malicious program infects. The text after a slash represents the general name. Variants are represented by a dot and one or several letters at the end of the name. Other types of programs than viruses have their type at the end of the name, e.g. .Worm and .Hoax.

WM=Word 6.x/7.x 
W97M=Word 97 
XF=Excel 4.0 formulas 
XM=Excel 5.0 
X97M=Excel 6.0 
P98M=Project 98 
PP97M=PowerPoint 97 
A97M=Access 97 
CVS=Corel Script
WP2kM=WordPerfect 2000 
VBS=Visual Basic Script 
mIrc=IRC script 
W32=Win32 (WinNT and Win95/98)
W95=Win95