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Cris Vol 1 Issue 13
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Article Written for Crisnews By:
Childe Roland
South Africa
30/10/1993
South African Computer Virus Scene
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As early as 1988 South Africa saw wide spread occurrences of
computer viruses in the form of the Bouncing Ball virus (also known
as the Ping Pong virus) as well as the Jerusalem virus.
By the end of 1989 the Bouncing Ball virus was very common and could
be found on many machines at local universities and technikons. The
local media frequently ran articles on computer viruses.
In 1990 two companies emerged as leaders in the anti virus field, one
being Business Software Solutions, representing the Dr Solomons anti
virus product and the other one being Dynamic Solutions,representing
the McAfee Associates anti virus product. Both of which offered
and are still offering telephonic hot-line services.
XT computer were being phased out and with it went the Bouncing Ball
virus that makes use of some XT reserved functions. (which do not work
properly on AT and 386 class computers)
In its place came the Stoned and the Michelangelo viruses. To this
day, these viruses remains the most wide spread in South Africa.It
should be added that South-Africa was aslo subjected to the wide-
spread Michaelangelo scare which in the end just fizzed out, leaving
many to wonder who generated this.
Towards the end of 1991, local computer viruses started appearing in
the form of the Poem,Pathunt,Civil Service,337 and Pregnant viruses,
most of which were written by computer science scholars or students
at local universities.
The Bulgarian Virus Exchange BBS also had an impact on local virus
writers and researchers with samples and source code becoming freely
available to them.As far as is known only one South-African had free
access there.
In 1992 a Cape Town based VX BBS called Logix Probe was established
but due to local pressure from BBS users as well as the Media it
was closed some 4 months later. Various other VX BBS sprang up all
over the country, but with the exception of the Virus Polytechnic,
run by Radix none of these have remained running for more than a
few weeks. It should be noted that the Logic Probe's adverse publi-
city was the work of some of the AV people in this country after it
was widely publicised on the local Fido network. Virus Polytechnic
limits its users severely and thus avoids wide publicity.
Numerous other companies jumped on the band wagon and started
selling anti - virus software including Computer Horizons,
representing Central Point, HNR Computers representing Norton anti
virus and Lionsoft representing EliaShim.
In February 1993, the Exebug virus took South Africa by storm, and
within 2-3 months became the most spread virus, followed closely
by Stoned and Michelangelo. Both the Exebug.2 and the Exebug.hooker
are common and resulted in wide spread data loss in March 1993.
To the best of my knowledge, South African law has no provision
covering computer viruses or computer security.
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