Ambulance (computer virus)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Ambulance
Malware details
AliasRedX
TypeVirus
OriginGermany
Technical details
PlatformDOS
Size796 bytes

Ambulance or Ambulance Car is a computer virus that infected computers running a DOS operating system in June 1990. It was discovered in Germany.[1]

Description

[edit | edit source]
File:Ambulance Virus Payload.gif
Animation of the payload

Ambulance does not become memory resident. It infects only one .COM file in any given directory, but not the first one. Thus, there must be at least two .COM files in a directory for it to spread.

When an infected file is executed, an ASCII art ambulance can be seen moving across the screen, a siren starts to sound, and it displays an alert message such as: BOOM! It is not a deliberately destructive virus; it simply spreads itself around and shows off its payload once in a while.[2] In certain iterations of the virus, the ambulance will only appear once per boot-up.[3]

Variants

[edit | edit source]

These are just some of many variants detected:

  • Ambulance Car-B
  • RedX-Any
  • Ambulance.793
  • Ambulance.793.A
  • Ambulance.795
  • Ambulance.796A[4]

See also

[edit | edit source]

References

[edit | edit source]
  1. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
[edit | edit source]