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PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, MAY 4: Variants of the Win-CIH virus that attacked thousands of computers worldwide wiping out invaluable data are bound to strike again on 26th of every month and April 26 every year, experts warn.
"Win-CIH is a family of four computer viruses infecting programme executable files. Three of them contain a destructive pay load that activates on the 26th of April in one variant and the other on 26th day of the months," an internet site on the deadly computer glitch cautioned.
However, some internet experts in India were of the opinion that Win-CIH would not get activated every month and termed it as an annual disaster striking computer installations only on April 26, commemorating the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
According to analysts, the virus affects hard disc drive of Windows 95 and 98.exe files primarily via internet and pirated software. Network Associates Inc said that the Windows-NT are not affected. Maximum hits of Win-CIH were reported from Asian countries including India,Malaysia and Bangladesh besides some European nations but US computers remained largely unaffected as most systems were protected by anti-virus programmes.
In India more than 10,000 computers crashed on the D-day and experts had blamed users for not taking adequate preventive measures to check the virus saying the disaster could have been averted if basic anti-virus programmes were installed. "A chance of virus attack on computer installations on April 26 was a known factor. However, no one cared to take action preventing it and got their data wiped out," R Venugopal, internet expert and software engineer said.
The expenditure for retrieving data wiped out by the virus is estimated around Rs 50 lakh to 1 crore and data recovery agencies are cashing on by charging Rs 1,000 to 10,000 for data retrieval.
Dewang Mehta, president of the National Association of Software Services Companies (NASSCOM), said there is no need to be panicky as almost cent per cent of data lost can be retrieved.
Leading datarecovery firms said they were still receiving calls from all over the country for data retrieval wiped out by the deadly virus. "We have been receiving calls for hard drive correction from all over and have undertaken more than 4,000 corrections," Ranjit Kanwar, marketing manager of Delhi-based Stellar Information Pvt Ltd, said this morning.
When asked about the reported crash of computers in the following days, experts said those crash may not be because of Win-CIH and asserted that such virus attacks are not in the offing for at least two months and virulent variants of bugs can be kept at bay by following basic preventive norms.
Software experts participating in a net chat this week said, "the Win-CIH was traced by western analysts in 1998 and spread worldwide through internet and electronic links". "CIH and such varieties of computer viruses are the most damaging when compared to other mild forms of `Melissa' and `Happy 99'. Yet these can be avoided if adequate security measures are opted whilelinking with the world wide web (www)," Sunil Dhavan, a Delhi-based software engineer said.
Win-CIH employs a space filling technique that closes up a computer's hard-disc storage system, crashing most of the systems making re-booting impossible, Net Writings said.
Interestingly the creator of the virus, Chen Ing-Hau, a 24-year-old software engineer from Taiwan, for whom the CIH stands, himself is offering assistance to recover the wiped data on April 26. Chen created the computer virus when he was a student of engineering and was summoned by security officers for creating the deadly virus but was freed as no complaint was registered against him in Taiwan.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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