February 28, 1997. Copyright, 1997, Graphic News. All rights reserved

BEATING MICHELANGELO
Notes compiled by Julie Mullins

LONDON, February 28, Graphic News- March 6 sees the fifth anniversary of the day when the Michelangelo computer virus first struck in 1992. The virus returns every year on the birthday of the Renaissance master and, in its first couple of years, wreaked havoc among PC users. If you are unlucky enough to get the Michelangelo virus and turn on your computer, or if the computer is running when its system clock changes to March 6 then you are likely to lose some or all of your data.

Nowadays, the most effective way to check for Michelangelo is to use an anti-viral program. Current versions of most anti-viral programs will detect, remove, and protect against the virus and it no longer represents a significant threat. However, it will be many years before the virus is eradicated completely.

The Michelangelo virus attaches to the boot sector of floppy disks and spreads to a hard disk when the computer is booted from an infected floppy. The virus is loaded first and installs itself in memory. It proceeds to copy the contents of memory, which will overwrite the first nine megabytes of a hard disk. Information stored in this area of the hard disk will be lost and cannot be recovered. Since the erased area also includes the system area of the hard disk, the hard disk will no longer boot.

In some cases, however, the infection may not be immediately apparent, so if a non-infected disk is inserted into the computer and accessed, the virus then infects that disk too.

If you have a CompuServe account, you can download public domain and shareware programs to detect and remove viruses from the McAfee Virus Help Forum (GO MCAFEE). If you have an Internet account, you can download from the MCAFEE FTP sites at mcafee.com and ftp.mcafee.com. McAfee is an American company specialising in virus removal. They cannot not, however, recover data once lost and recommend you contact a reputable data recovery service should you become a victim of the virus on March 6. 

Source: McAfee