For Home

Virus Profile: W97M/Clave.a

Threat Search
Print
   
Virus Profile information details
Risk Assessment: Home Low | Corporate Low
Date Discovered: 2/15/2002
Date Added: 9/18/2002
Origin: Unknown
Length: N/A
Type: Virus
Subtype: Macro
DAT Required: 4072
Removal Instructions
   
 
 
   

Description

This is a virus detection. Viruses are programs that self-replicate recursively, meaning that infected systems spread the virus to other systems, which then propagate the virus further. While many viruses contain a destructive payload, it's quite common for viruses to do nothing more than spread from one system to another.

Indication of Infection

The above message displayed. The presence of the file quetecagas.vbs in the Windows SYSTEM directory.

Methods of Infection

Opening an infected document will directly infect the local Word environment and any document opened thereafter.
   

Virus Characteristics

This threat is detected as W97M/Generic. The virus contains one module - QueTeCagas. Upon opening the infected document, the virus will infect the normal template and all documents opened thereafter.

If the day 28th of any month, the virus will display the following message:

The virus will also create the file quetecagas.vbs in the Windows SYSTEM folder. It will edit the registry to execute this file on startup:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Run\ "TeCagas" "windir/system/quetecagas.vbs"

The file quetecagas.vbs is not viral and will only display the above message.
   
Use current engine and DAT files for detection and removal.

It is very common for macro viruses to disable options within Office applications for example in Word, the macro protection warning commonly is disabled. After cleaning macro viruses, ensure that your previously set options are again enabled.

AVERT Recommended Updates:

* Office 2000 updates

* Malformed Word Document Could Enable Macro to Run Automatically (Information/Patch)