CIH (computer virus)

CIH is a computer virus, also known as Chernobyl or Spacefiller. It was written by Chen Ing Hau Taiwanese. CIH was a computer virus that could cause hardware defects. It attacks. Exe files (Portable Executable ) on Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME. This does not affect versions of Windows based on Windows NT, which the virus is now taking more and more important.

Here, first, the complete contents of hard disks is overwritten. Furthermore, it tries to overwrite the BIOS of the computer also. This only works on computers with Intel 430TX chipsets, where additional protection against overwriting the BIOS 'is missing or is not enabled. Is overwriting the BIOS occurs, the affected PC will not boot, it needs to be replaced the BIOS chip on the motherboard.

The first time the virus appeared on 2 June 1998 in Taiwan, but later spread around the world. On 26 April 1999, the author's birthday, and the anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986, the damage routine of CIH was first activated. Worldwide countless computers were affected by the virus.

The distribution appears to have been favored because both illegally copied software was contaminated with the virus, as well as legal software products.

To protect the flash BIOS from being overwritten, there are many motherboards on a jumper, which is to prevent unwanted changes in the BIOS. However, this does not guarantee protection, as some BIOS versions of the write protection for the Flash BIOS is set as standard software in spite of such a jumper. This makes the virus to use and disables further ado the write protection. For the partition table, there is no hardware- sided protection.

Also commercial sources were affected by CIH in August 1998 was a download for the game Wing Commander: Secret Ops infected. Also gift CDs of European gaming magazines as well as a firmware upgrade a Yamaha CD drive were affected. Some IBM Aptiva PCs were delivered in March 1999 infected by CIH.

Variants

  • CIH v1.2 TTIT ( CIH 1003)
  • CIH v1.3 TTIT ( CIH 1010)
  • CIH v1.3 TTIT ( CIH 1010.B )
  • CIH v1.4 TATUNG ( CIH 1019)
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