AntiCMOS is a
boot virus. Its first discovery was at
Lenart,
Slovenia, which led to its alias of Lenart. It was isolated in
Hong Kong several times at the beginning of 1994, but did not become common until it spread to
North America in the Spring of 1995. AntiCMOS is a fairly standard boot virus, and is primarily notable for being one of the few
DOS viruses to remain in the wild as of 2020.
AntiCMOS is so named because it has the intended effect of erasing all
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSF ...
information. This does not occur because of a bug in the virus code. This is true of all AntiCMOS variants that have appeared in the wild. The payload date of December 1993 and the obsolete nature of these variants makes it very unlikely that AntiCMOS's payload will ever be a threat.
AntiCMOS.B
AntiCMOS.B is a boot virus. It was isolated in mid-1995. Like AntiCMOS.A, AntiCMOS.B became common worldwide. However, this variant never reached the success level of the original, and is now considered obsolete.
Infected
floppy disks contain the following text:
: I am Li Xibin
Additionally, AntiCMOS.B attempts to play a tune, but this fails due to coding error
AntiCMOS.B is otherwise a typical boot virus, much like its predecessor.
AntiCMOS.C
AntiCMOS.C is a boot virus and very minor variant of the AntiCMOS family. Unlike AntiCMOS and AntiCMOS.B, AntiCMOS.C remained in the field for a very short period of time, and is now considered entirely obsolete.
References
{{Reflist
External links
SophosF-Secure
Boot viruses