By Hector Calabia
IDG News Service,
Buenos Aires Bureau
BUENOS AIRES –
It has been released the first virus that affects the popular CAD
(computer-aided design) program AutoCAD. A preview version of the virus report was
revealed to the IDG News Service on Wednesday morning by Bernardo Quintero
[CQ], head of the Spanish security specialist firm Hispasec [CQ].
According to
the report, Hispasec just discovered the new "Autocad2k\Star", the
very first "virus" developed for the popular AutoCAD 2000 software
program. The virus does not appear to be harmful. However, it does illustrate
the feasibility of infecting this program. The malicious code can be the
forerunner of a new family of macro viruses for this platform.
This is
possible since when Autodesk, Inc., AutoCAD's developers, added VBA (Visual
Basic for Applications) compatibility to their product, from Version 14. This
capability allows inserting macros within an AutoCAD design or external
scripts, with the extension .DVB.
The program
just offers an option for enabling a macro warning notice. This warning,
however, cannot reveal whether the macros included are legitimate ones,
included in the original document, or if they were maliciously added by an
external program.
The macro
virus "Autocad2k\Star" is a very simple program, that just infects
the application documents, with no further harmful activity, says the report.
The virus code is enclosed within a module called
"AcadDocument_Deactivate". The virus executes itself when the window
that contains it or the document loses focus, or is deactivated. Then,
according to the report, it infects all the AutoCAD documents that it finds in
the victim's hard disk.
The virus
carries a short comment line at the end of its code: "Big Greetz to
some0ne [sic] really special. 'You'll always be a star in my sky'.".
According to
Quinteros, the possibilities of a widespread dissemination of the virus are
low, mainly because AutoCAD is a specialized platform, and virus creators usually
program for applications of a more massive nature, in order to increase the
possibilities of infection and the circulation of their "creations".
Autodesk, Inc., in San Rafael, California, can be reached at
415-507-6611, or at http://www.autocad.com
Hispasec is at en http://www.hispasec.com/.
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