Chernobyl

Windows 95

Chernobyl is a resident virus that activates every April 26. It was given this name because the date coincides with the commemoration of the nuclear disaster that took place in Chernobyl in 1986.

This virus is extremely dangerous, as it deletes the content of the hard disk, preventing Windows NT, Windows 98 or Windows 95 computers from starting up. It also infects files with an EXE extension, but only in Windows 98 and Windows 95 computers.

In computers with an Intel Pentium microprocessor, it deletes the content of the BIOS.

In order to spread it uses several means of transmission, but it does not use a specific method.

After Chernobyl has infected a computer, various symptoms can be noticed:

• When the computer is started up, the following message is displayed:
  
  "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"
  This message indicates that the computer cannot be started. The reason for this is that Chernobyl has formatted the hard disk.
• If the computer is booted from another disk and then the C:/ drive is accessed, the following warning is displayed:
  
  "INVALID DRIVE SPECIFICATION"
  This means that the system does not recognize the hard disk because it is completely blank.