Number 222 - November 2001

Boot Sector Virus Protection
by Carl Tenning, Tacoma Open Group for Microcomputers
I noticed when running Norton AntiVirus, that there is quite a long pause while the Scan Computer window displays "Scanning boot sector". The delay is up to two minutes. There is no disk activity during this time. At first I thought that Norton AntiVirus had hung, but after waiting long enough, it proceeded with checking the files.     To see if something might be wrong, I visited the Symantec web site and found that since January 1988, Symantec has included a new type of boot sector scanning they call Bloodhound Boot Technology. In addition to scanning for known viruses, this technology apparently looks for new and	unknown virus characteristics. They state that boot-sector viruses typically invade a PC through an infected floppy disk that is left in a drive while the PC is started. These viruses replace the critical boot sector program used to start the computer with their own malicious program logic. The Bloodhound Boot Technology scans the boot sector for virus-like behavior. The Symantec explanation is at: www.symantec.com/ region/ can/ eng/ press/ 1998/ n980121.html     Well, maybe this is why it takes up to two minutes to scan my boot sector. No virus was found.
Number 222 - November 2001