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MacPac 2.1 arrives!

MacPac 2.1 arrives!

CNET staff
2 min read
More recent reports (from Warren Holz and others) of the suspected new strain of SevenDust/666 virus (as reported last time) now suggest that it may simply be an already known strain C version of the virus - that went undetected by some (although certainly not all) anti-virus detectors. For example, as noted by Symantec's Lee Gummerman: "Norton AntiVirus for Mac does detect and repair (in this case, by deleting) SevenDust C (features of this strain: polymorphic, encrypted, no payload)."

In any case, new versions of The Exorcist and Agax (two freeware utilities that deal with this virus) are now out. Joe Laffey (author of the Exorcist) writes: "This 0.95b3 version should offer more protection against more strains of the virus. It removes many of the (not required) files created by version 0.95b2. It creates only two files, one with a special resource fork." A version 0.95b5 is now compatible with versions of the system software earlier than 8.0 (back to 7.1 most likely).

Ioannis Galidakis states that: "the latest SevenDustvariants attack the System file with a probability of 50%. This means that half of the time they will try to create an extension and the other half they will try to attack the System file. As such, inoculation against extension overwrites is only 50% effective." However, Joe Laffey contends that the virus only attempts to infect the System file if it does not find the extension present. "This is why The Exorcist now uses a file with this INIT resource in it. So It is my belief that The Exorcist should protect you much more than 50% of the time." Ioannis now agrees with this assessment.