Software:HyperCard viruses

From HandWiki
Short description: Computer viruses that target HyperCard

Soon after the release of HyperCard in 1987, computer viruses appeared that targeted the application.[1] The viruses were written in the HyperTalk programming language and typically spread by infecting the Home stack and then infecting other stacks from there.[2][3]

List of viruses

Name of Virus Year discovered Notes
Dukakis 1988 First known HyperCard virus.[1][4] Self-destructs after displaying a message encouraging people to vote for Michael Dukakis.[1][3]
3 Tunes (or HC) 1991[4] First reported from Holland and Belgium.[4] On systems running the German Mac OS, the virus causes infected stacks to play three German folk tunes.[3]
MerryXmas 1991[5] Intended to simply propagate, but because of an error, the virus sometimes copies parts of other stack scripts along with its own code causing stacks to behave unexpectedly. Variants include Merry2Xmas, Lopez, and Crudshot.[3]
HC 9507 1995 Causes the word "Pickle" to be typed at the cursor insertion point. May also cause the computer to crash.[3][6]
Antibody 1997 Eradicates the MerryXmas virus and installs MerryXmas inoculation code into infected stacks.[3]
Independance Day 1997 After July 4, 1997, unsuccessfully attempts to delete random lines of code from stacks.[3]
Blink 1998 After January 1, 1999, causes infected stacks to blink.[3]
Wormcode 2000 Originally posted to the usenet group "comp.sys.mac.hypercard" in a stack called "Font Preview". Aside from spreading, the virus does no damage.[3]

References