A batch of laptops pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium was found to have been infected with a 13-year-old boot sector virus.Those of you with a long memory will vividly recall the year 1994: Nirvana's lead singer Kurt Cobain died, South Africa held its first multi-racial elections, and Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party. Oh, and Microsoft's operating system was the quaint, pre-NT Windows for Workgroups.
But it was a year that also saw the arrival of a boot sector computer virus known as Stoned.Angelina which moved the original master boot record to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 9.It would appear that this teenage virus has not yet been consigned to the history books.
According to Virus Bulletin, the consignment of infected Medion laptops – which could number anything up to 100,000 shipments – had been sold in Danish and German branches of retail giant Aldi.The computers had been loaded with Microsoft's latest operating system Vista and
Bullguard's anti-virus software, which failed to detect and remove the malware.
Although the infection itself is harmless, Stoned.Angelina will undoubtedly have left Microsoft and Bullguard execs blushing with embarrassment about the apparent flaws in their software which allowed an ancient virus to slip through the back door.
But it was a year that also saw the arrival of a boot sector computer virus known as Stoned.Angelina which moved the original master boot record to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 9.It would appear that this teenage virus has not yet been consigned to the history books.
According to Virus Bulletin, the consignment of infected Medion laptops – which could number anything up to 100,000 shipments – had been sold in Danish and German branches of retail giant Aldi.The computers had been loaded with Microsoft's latest operating system Vista and
Bullguard's anti-virus software, which failed to detect and remove the malware.
Although the infection itself is harmless, Stoned.Angelina will undoubtedly have left Microsoft and Bullguard execs blushing with embarrassment about the apparent flaws in their software which allowed an ancient virus to slip through the back door.
On its website Bullguard offered some reassurance to Medion customers hit by the virus:
"Stoned.Angelina is a low-risk boot virus that infects the MBR (Master Boot Record) of hard disks. This is a very old virus. Apart from its ability to spread from computer to computer, it carries no payload (damage) to the systems it infects."
Asked if this means we could see a resurgence of old viruses attacking new operating systems, Verduign said: "This is not so much a wake-up call but more a reminder" and added that it would be impossible to ever "completely eradicate a virus."
News source: El Reg
I seriusly doubt a boot sector virus,muchless a 13 year old actually can ifnect Vista, or even 2k/XP.
I seriusly doubt a boot sector virus,muchless a 13 year old actually can ifnect Vista, or even 2k/XP.
you really think they built the image on 13 year old hardware for a machine capable of running vista ??
i think not, but this is too damn funny
what makes me laugh is that the AV compies own software failed to recognise a 13 year old virus
Yea, let's all make fun of Microsoft because they haven't immunized Vista against problems outside of Vista's scope...
Guess what, guys! I smashed my computer with a hammer, and Vista won't boot anymore! LOL! WHAT A CRAPPY OS!
+1 not a vista issue
LMAO!
The main issues here are the lack of quality control shown by Medion when building their laptops.
Normally Medion equipment is fairly good quality so this is something of a surprise.
The other issue is the Bullguard antivirus package which from experience is even worse than Mcafee or even Symantec/Norton products.
It does not surprise me that this package fails to detect an older virus.
I wonder how many Antivirus packages would have detected this virus?
Kind Regards
Simon
Kind Regards
Simon
My thoughts exactly and why I speculated it was intentionally done by a disgruntled employee with a CD archive of viruses which he scanned to determine which were detected and which were not and then chose one of the undetected viruses to distribute through a master installation image.
umm... really? or is that your computer is outdated?
BOOT SECTOR virus http://kb.iu.edu/data/ahll.html
Well thats older than the average age that uses vista (or neowin) LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-GaRKDsz-Y
The virus in question?
Windows NT 3.1 came out a year earlier actually.
Have you never seen there stuff? Their computers always use very good quality branded components (i've seen em, i've read the spec sheet, and was pretty well stunned) and any stuff they sell like garage accessories for working on cars, etc are all german TUV approved. If something is TUV approved, it aint bad at all.
Don't dismiss them when you know nothing about them!
It doesn't really matter what operating system is on a computer - if it has a virus and there is no anti-virus or old definitions for the anti-virus on the machine, it's still an infected machine. The fact that Vista was mentioned was just because of another fanboi hating Microsoft. I'm not a fan myself, but yes, the title is just... well, flawed.
need i say anymore..... just like slashdot.........
Always spinning something to make another company look wrong
In this case its not micrsofts fault or vistas fault its the OEM laptop maker who loads the laptops with the images
2) Do I think old Viruses might be capable of damaging in Vista? Certainly, it happened with XP and microsofts own image format.
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