Byte Bandit

Byte Bandit is a boot sector computer virus created for the Commodore Amiga. It first appeared in January 1988, and was created by SCA.

It was one of the most feared Amiga viruses until the infamous Lamer Exterminator because not only did it spread from system to system automatically, it was also destructive.

Byte Bandit made no attempt to disguise itself as modern viruses, trojans, and worms do. While it naturally over-wrote the bootblock, it also hooked into the system, remaining reset-resident and causing system data corruption and system failures. The virus increments a copy counter every time it writes itself to a disk, which is in the text string "Virus by Byte Bandit in 9.87. Number of copys:" which also gives a date of September 1987 for the creation, as well as the assumed name of the programmer.

External links

http://www.sca.ch/ – Swiss Cracking Association's homepage
http://agn-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/catalog/amiga/html/byteba7.htm – Detailed virus information.
Byte Bandit-Virus description at the Amiga Virus Encyclopedia

Hacking in the 1980s

Malware	1260 Brain Byte Bandit Cascade Christmas Tree EXEC Elk Cloner Father Christmas Ghostball Jerusalem Lamer Exterminator Morris worm Ping-Pong SCA Scores Stoned

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