First Windows 2000 Virus Discovered By F-Secure

F-Secure says that it has discovered the industry's first Windows 2000 virus, despite the fact that the new Microsoft operating system is still a month from shipment.

The new virus is called Win2K.Inta or Win2000.Install and, the Finnish
information technology (IT) security firm says, appears to be written
by the 29A virus group.

The good news for current users of Windows is that the firm reports
that the virus does not execute at all under older versions of
Windows.

"It's a media virus, which means it hasn't been discovered in the
wild, but it is something that is worth noting," said Mikko Hypponen,
F-Secure's manager for anti-virus research, adding that the virus was
probably coded by someone with a beta copy of Windows 2000.

F-Secure says that, because it has received no reports that this virus
is in the wild, the Win2K.Inta virus is not considered to be a major
threat. The most important feature of the virus, the firm says, is its
capability to spread under the new operating system.

"Now we can expect virus writers to include Windows 2000 compatibility
as a standard feature in new viruses," said Hypponen.

For the technically-minded, Win2K.Inta works by infecting program
files and spreads from one computer to another when those files are
exchanged. The infected files do not grow in size.

The virus contains the following text string, which is never
displayed: "(Win2000.Installer) by Benny/29A & Darkman/29A"

Further technical information and a screenshot of the virus is
available from F-Secure's Web site at
http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/v-pics/.