AGI-Plan (computer virus)
Encyclopedia
For information on the African consulting company, see Agiplan (company).
AGI-Plan was a memory resident DOS
file infector first isolated at the Agiplan software company in Germany
. Because of CARO standards that dictate that viruses should not be named after companies, AGI-Plan's technical name is Month 4-6. This name also violates CARO standards, but a more minor rule involving syntax. AGI-Plan is related to the Zero Bug virus, as both it and AGI-Plan prepend 1,536 byte
s to files they infect.
AGI-Plan is not initially damaging until several months after the initial infection, hence its name. After activation, AGI-Plan will begin to corrupt write operations, which results in slow, difficult-to-notice damage overtime.
AGI-Plan is notable for reappearing in South Africa
in what appeared to be an intentional re-release several years after. AGI-Plan never succeeded in spreading significantly beyond the isolated incidents in Germany and South Africa.
AGI-Plan was a memory resident DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
file infector first isolated at the Agiplan software company in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Because of CARO standards that dictate that viruses should not be named after companies, AGI-Plan's technical name is Month 4-6. This name also violates CARO standards, but a more minor rule involving syntax. AGI-Plan is related to the Zero Bug virus, as both it and AGI-Plan prepend 1,536 byte
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...
s to files they infect.
AGI-Plan is not initially damaging until several months after the initial infection, hence its name. After activation, AGI-Plan will begin to corrupt write operations, which results in slow, difficult-to-notice damage overtime.
AGI-Plan is notable for reappearing in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in what appeared to be an intentional re-release several years after. AGI-Plan never succeeded in spreading significantly beyond the isolated incidents in Germany and South Africa.