Home » Hacking News » Vista viruses already
Vista viruses already
by Nikola Strahija on August 5th, 2005 An Austrian virus writer has published five simple viruses targeting Microsoft Command Shell (MSH), the command line interface and scripting language, in a virus-writing magazine. None of these pieces of malware have been named as yet.
As MSH (codenamed 'Monad') is scheduled to ship as the default shell for Windows Vista (which was released in beta form last week), these five items of malware could be classified as the first viruses for Windows Vista.
However anti-virus firm F-Secure emphasizes that it's still uncertain whether or not MSH will ship with Vista. MSH is a replacement for shells such as cmd.exe and command.com and although currently slated for inclusion in Vista it may end up in products such as the next version of Microsoft Exchange instead.
The possibility of MSH viruses was forecasted last year by anti-virus researcher Eric Chien, of Symantec, in a presentation at the virus bulletin conference.
