Youth develops virus cleaner
MUSCAT — Yaha Virus, a new deadly computer virus, has established itself in
Oman. This virus has affected many computer users already and is continuing to
spread wildly. Tariq bin Hilal Al Barwani, an Omani computer expert, has
developed a brand new virus cleaner to battle the deadly virus. The virus
cleaner can be downloaded for free from his personal website at http://www.tariq.net.
The virus arrives in e-mail boxes with an attached file under different
subject heading such as: Are you the best; How to hack Hotmail; I love you;
Wanna be like a stone?; Are you a soccer fan?; Sexy screensavers 4 u; Check it
out; We want peace; Wanna be a he-man; Visit us; One virus writer’s story; One
hacker’s love; And many more … etc etc. It will also arrive with an unknown
varied executable email attachment (file); such as: Hotmail_hack.exe;
Friendship.scr; World_of_friendship.scr; Shake.scr; Sweet.scr; Be_happy.scr;
Friend_finder.exe; I_like_you.scr; Love.scr; Dance.scr; Gc_messenger.exe;
True_love.scr; Friend_happy.scr; Best_friend.scr; Life.scr.
Once the file (virus) is executed, it alters your system and changes some of
the critical system configuration file causing the system not to function
properly, in addition, disables the anti-virus cleaner (if not updated) from
detecting future viruses. The virus then uses its own SMTP engine to email
itself to all contacts in the Windows Address Book, the MSN Messenger, the
.NET Messenger, the Yahoo Pager, and all files whose extensions contains the
letters HT. It attempts to use the infected computer’s default SMTP server to
send mail. If it cannot find that information, then it uses one of many SMTP
server addresses that are hard-coded into the worm.
“The virus is spreading all over Oman, and I have already received a lot of
emails enquiring about it. Hence, I decided to create a programme which would
remove the virus, recover the state of the system and finally enable the
Vendor’s Virus Cleaner, be it Norton’s or Mcafee, to function properly,” Tariq
said.
“Users who are regularly updating their anti-virus shouldn’t find any
difficulties detecting and removing the virus; however, if the virus infects a
system, the cleaner will be terminated (disabled) and users will have some
problems removing it manually. My programme will simply return everything as
it was. The user is then recommended to update their virus cleaner in order to
remain safe,” he added.
“It is always my pleasure to create useful programmes and provide it free for
the public,” Tariq noted.