12 May 1999
Virus writers find new victim
Sophos identifies first Corel SCRIPT virus
Illustrators using Corel software are being threatened by the
attack of a new virus. The virus is written in Corel SCRIPT, a
macro programming language supported by Corel's products. Until
now, Corel SCRIPT has been free from virus infection.
The virus, dubbed 'CSC/CSV-A', infects .CSC (Corel SCRIPT)
files. Every time an infected script is run it looks for another
victim file and infects it.
On 6 June, the virus displays part of a poem by famous writer
J.R.R. Tolkien. The fantasy works of Tolkien have always been
popular amongst the virus-writing counter culture.
"While this virus is more irritating than destructive, it is
proof that virus writers are aggressively searching for new
entry-points into the software market", said Paul Ducklin, head of
research at Sophos."We can expect to see similar attacks on other
relatively sheltered areas of the industry."
"Another interesting feature of this virus is the J.R.R. Tolkien
poetry reference", he added. "Hobby connections in viruses may turn
out to be useful to the authorities in investigating and
prosecuting virus writers."
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.