Virus Encyclopedia
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Stoned.Spirit | |
Threat Level Damage Distribution |
At a glance
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Common name: | Stoned.Spirit |
Technical name: | Stoned.Spirit |
Threat level: | Low |
Type: | Virus |
Effects: | It prevents the computer from starting up correctly.
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Affected platforms:
| MS-DOS |
Detection updated on: | July 17, 2001 |
Statistics | No |
Family: | ANTICMOS |
Brief Description | |
Stoned.Spirit is a boot virus that infects the boot sector of floppy and hard disks.
Stoned.Spirit infects the hard disk of a computer when it is booted from an infected floppy disk. From then on, all of the floppy disks used on the computer will also be infected and the affected computer will have problems starting up.
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Visible Symptoms | |
An indication that Stoned.Spirit has infected a computer is the following message displayed on screen:
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Tech details
Effects |
When Stoned.Spirit is run, it infects the boot sector of floppy disks (Boot) and hard disks (Master Boot Record or MBR), and carries out the following effects:
- It overwrites the original boot sector with an infected copy.
- It infects all the floppy disks used on the affected computer, provided that they are not write-protected.
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Infection strategy
Stoned.Spirit follows the infection routine below:
- It infects the computer when it is booted from a floppy disk infected by the virus.
- From the infected floppy disk, Stoned.Spirit goes memory resident.
- From memory, Stoned.Spirit infects all the floppy disks used on the computer.
Means of transmission
Stoned.Spirit only spreads through floppy disks, in the following way:
- It infects the hard disk of the computer, when it is booted from a floppy disk infected by the virus.
- It infects all the floppy disks used on the affected computer. These floppy disks will then infect other computers.