An aggressive virus, called Hare or Hare Krishna, which was first distributed via the Internet in May of this year, is set to attack personal computers on August 22 and September 22. The announcement was made by US firm Cheyenne Software. Binat Software Systems and the Iris company assisted inthe development of the anti-virus.
Cheyenne, which specializes in the development of sophisticated local area network (LAN) management software and software security, reports that the virus is difficult to detect through traditional anti-virus software, and is considered severe and highly destructive.. On August 22nd and September 22nd, Hare will destroy all data on an infected PC by overwriting the computer's hard drive.
PCs infected with Hare will display the message "HDEuthanasia..." when the PC is restarted on August 22nd or September 22nd. Hare will then overwrite the entire hard drive, deleting all data. After attempting to destroy all data on the PC, Hare returns to dormancy and may then replicate to any floppy diskette used to recover and reboot the damaged PC.
Cheyenne has posted a free update that detects and cures the Hare virus using Cheyenne InocuLAN and Cheyenne AntiVirus software products. The update is available through Cheyenne's Security Center on the World Wide Web. The company strongly recommends that users download the free update and use it to examine and inoculate their PCs against the Hare virus before August 22nd.
Binat Software Systems will make assistance available to the public via its support center, and will operate a telephone hotline at 03 645 9009. The company recommends inoculating PCs against the Hare virus before August 22.