Autumn leaves (computer virus)

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Herbstlaub is the name of a computer virus that was first discovered in 1987 at the University of Konstanz . In the original version it was exactly 1704 bytes in size and only affected .COM files . The virus dropped letters from the screen to the bottom line at irregular intervals, making the computer more or less unusable. You had to restart the computer, data was lost. Autumn leaves were one of the last viruses to be programmed without direct malicious code ; it was still viewed as a joke program, although it was already causing considerable damage. Fall foliage spread via infected floppy disks , making control relatively easy. If the computer was started from the hard drive , the virus was not active. That is why the damage was limited.

particularities

The virus was relatively little spread in the Eastern Bloc , which meant that speculations assume that it was malicious code that was spread from the east during the Cold War . Immediately after the autumn leaves, a probably Bulgarian programmer with the pseudonym Dark Avenger programmed numerous also memory - resident viruses, which, however, unlike the autumn leaves also infected .EXE files . Dark Avenger was considered the most prominent and inventive virus producer at the time.

Fall foliage is now considered to be the first memory-resident virus as well as the first virus that could encrypt itself. It thus established the second generation of computer viruses. The encryption key is very short and was often used for teaching purposes in the past: 

xor [si],si
xor [si],sp
inc si
dec sp

Aliases

The autumn leaves virus was also known by the following names:

  • Cascade
  • Colani (slightly different appearance, same malicious code)
  • 1701
  • 1704
  • Blackjack

Footnotes

  1. ↑ IT security can be easily conveyed to the user ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on security-insider.de  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.security-insider.de
  2. ↑ Information from the University of Hamburg about autumn leaves
  3. ↑ Heise.de on Aug. 30, 2001: You love us.txt.vbs ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ F-Secure: Description of the Dark Avenger (Eng.)
  5. ↑ Viruslist.com: Virus Encyclopedia / The History of Malware / 1990 ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from Kaspersky lab  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.viruslist.com
  6. ↑ Viruslist.com: Virus Encyclopedia / The History of Malware / 1987 ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from Kaspersky lab  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.viruslist.com
  7. ↑ Der Spiegel 44/1992: Avengers in the data network

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