ANTI-VIRUS MANUFACTURER WARNS OF POTENTIAL THREAT TO COMPUTERS FROM
MICHELANGELO

NEPEAN, Ont. -- February 19, 1995 -- Look Software Systems Inc.,
manufacturer of Virus ALERT antivirus, today issued an advisory to users
of DOS based personal computers about a renewed potential threat this year
from the Michelangelo virus that caused such a stir three years ago.

According to Cliff Livingstone, a systems engineer at Look Software, the
DOS book sector virus is a time bomb bug which triggers on March 6 each
year, formatting any hard drive which it has infected by rewriting the
drive with random characters from system memory, making the drive
unrecoverable.

Livingstone says the renewed threat of this annual virus is the result of
simple dates. "We didn't hear much about this virus for the last couple of
years because March 5 fell on a Saturday in 1993, and on a Sunday in 1994
-- this year it's a Monday and most systems will be in use. He suggests
that those at greater risk are individuals, small to medium-size
businesses, and educational institutions which normally would have their
computer systems turned off on a weekend. "Anyone who hasn't performed
regular virus checks over the past two years, should scan their systems
thoroughly before Monday, March 6 to avoid being taken by surprise."

Livingstone says in his research of computer viruses, he has found
background on Michelangelo in VSUM Virus Encyclopedia by Patricia M.
Hoffman, a widely respected authority on the history and effects of
computer viruses. According to VSUM, Michelangelo is a relative of the
common Stoned DOS boot sector virus, but with the added time-bomb twist.
The virus becomes memory-resident when a system is booted from an infected
hard drive and total system memory (as measured by the DOS CHKDSK utility)
typically decreases by 2,048 bytes. While in memory, the virus will infect
any floppy disk used by the computer, which in turn can spread the virus
to other computers.

Livingstone adds that, fortunately, up-to-date versions of most popular DOS
antivirus utilities, including his own company's latest Virus ALERT,
should easily detect and clean out Michelangelo in a few minutes. Look
Software's own product has the additional ability to scan for viruses that
might be transmitted via the Internet or other e-mail systems.

Look Software Systems Inc
613-837-2151

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