When the Michelangelo virus strikes this Friday, March 6, computers across China may grind to a halt, according to Jim Porter. India will suffer a similar fate, Porter believes, and there may be chaos in Hong Kong. Porter heads Disk/Trend Inc, a firm recognised the world over for its analysis of the disk industry… and known to friends as a company that is extremely cautious about the security of its own disk files. Lately, Porter’s strong warnings about viruses are not merely a philosophical position but extremely sound advice. Porter believes that the Michelangelo virus, spread by contaminated floppy disks and activated when a computer is booted from a floppy, poses a serious threat. When it strikes, it wipes out entire disks (both hard and floppy), making computers completely useless. Unlike their wealthier Western counterparts who have hard disks, personal computer users in China often have only floppy drives. Thus the Chinese are particularly vulnerable. But that alone would not make the Chinese so susceptible to Michelangelo. There is another factor: the Chinese are a nation of software bootleggers, followed at a distance by users in India and Hong Kong. As diskettes are duplicated, the virus is cloned along with the rest of a diskette’s contents. However, this will not always lead to epidemics; Michelangelo is apparently carried only on bootable diskettes formatted with system programs, not those carrying only data (or programs that are not bootable). Further, diskettes purchased from nearly all software vendors are subjected to testing that generally locates and destroys viruses before the products are put into distribution. While there are programs that can detect and thwart Michelangelo, Porter does not believe that these packages are widely available in China, India or Hong Kong. Thus, software manufacturers whose products have been replicated by unauthorised users in the East may have the last laugh – if they are not too ill with Asian flu to be amused. – Hesh Wiener (C) 1992 Technology News of America Co Inc. All rights reserved.
