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Virus Profile: W97M/Akuma

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Virus Profile information details
Risk Assessment: Home Low | Corporate Low
Date Discovered: 8/25/1999
Date Added: 12/4/2002
Origin: Unknown
Length: N/A
Type: Virus
Subtype: Macro
DAT Required: 4040
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

Document files are overwritten with the above message. Macro warning protection disabled.

Methods of Infection

Opening infected documents will directly infect the local Word environment and any document used thereafter.

Aliases

W97M.Akuma.A (NAV)
   

Virus Characteristics

This threat is detected as W97M/Cont.gen. On opening, the virus will disable the macro warning protection. It will also change the user information in File/Properties/Summary - Title = Akuma Macro Carrier, Author = Akuma, Keywords = Mary B*tch.

The virus will export its code to c:\cont.dbl. This file is not infected. If date is 16, 17 or 18th of any month, the virus will overwrite all files from the recently used files list with the following message: "Something wonderful has happened, your PC is alive and even better but some of your documents are infected by the Akuma virus. Mary is simply a bitch and you, [UserName], are a stupid jerk and lose some files.
Have a nice day.
It may also display the following message:

Something
   
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)