A new virus, called CIH, causes destructive harm to certain types of personal computers. CIH was first spotted in Taiwan in June 1998. Within a week it had spread to Australia, Chile, Israel, various European countries and the United States, using pirated software and games as its principal vector. CIH infects open EXE files, remaining in memory and infecting new programs as they are opened. On trigger dates, depending on which of three CIH variants is present, the virus tries to overwrite the computer’s Flash BIOS chip. Not all motherboard and chipsets allow writing to BIOS. However some do, and those that do include Intel’s 430TX chipset. CIH affects Windows 95 and 98, but not Windows NT. Preventative software is available from the usual vendors. Rob Rosenberger of the Computer Virus Myths web site says the threat that CIH poses has been exaggerated by those same vendors. It’s not the first virus to do what it claims, and it won’t be the last, he says. It’s named after the rodent hantavirus mentioned in the X-Files movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if the author had named it after that, just for the publicity.
