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Article Written for Crisnews By: 

Childe Roland
South Africa
                                                             
                                                             30/10/1993

   South African Computer Virus Scene
   ----------------------------------

   As early as 1988 South Africa saw wide spread occurrences of 
   computer viruses in the form of the Bouncing Ball virus (also known 
   as the Ping Pong virus) as well as the Jerusalem virus.

   By the end of 1989 the Bouncing Ball virus was very common and could
   be found on many  machines at local universities and technikons. The
   local media frequently ran articles on computer viruses.
   
   In 1990 two companies emerged as leaders in the anti virus field, one
   being Business Software Solutions, representing the Dr Solomons anti
   virus product and the other one being Dynamic Solutions,representing
   the McAfee Associates anti virus product. Both  of which offered
   and are still offering telephonic hot-line services.

   XT computer were being phased out and with it went the Bouncing Ball 
   virus that makes use of some XT reserved functions. (which do not work 
   properly on AT and 386 class computers)

   In its place came the  Stoned and the Michelangelo viruses. To this
   day, these viruses remains the most wide spread in South Africa.It
   should be added that South-Africa was aslo subjected to the wide-
   spread Michaelangelo scare which in the end just fizzed out, leaving
   many to wonder who generated this.

   Towards the end of 1991, local computer viruses started appearing in 
   the form of the Poem,Pathunt,Civil Service,337 and Pregnant viruses,
   most of which were written by computer science scholars or students 
   at local universities.

   The  Bulgarian Virus Exchange BBS also had an impact on local virus
   writers and researchers with samples and source code becoming freely
   available to them.As far as is known only one South-African had free
   access there.

   In 1992 a Cape Town based VX BBS called Logix Probe was established
   but due to local pressure from BBS users as well as the Media it 
   was  closed some 4 months later. Various other VX BBS sprang up all 
   over the country, but with the exception of the Virus Polytechnic, 
   run by Radix none of these have remained running for more than a 
   few weeks. It should be noted that the Logic Probe's adverse publi-
   city was the work of some of the AV people in this country after it
   was widely publicised on the local Fido network. Virus Polytechnic
   limits its users severely and thus avoids wide publicity.

   Numerous other companies jumped on the band wagon and started 
   selling  anti - virus software including Computer Horizons,
   representing Central Point, HNR Computers representing Norton  anti 
   virus and Lionsoft representing EliaShim.

   In February 1993, the Exebug virus took South Africa by storm, and
   within 2-3 months  became the most spread virus, followed closely
   by Stoned and Michelangelo. Both the Exebug.2 and the Exebug.hooker
   are common and resulted in wide spread data loss in March 1993.
   
   To the best of my knowledge, South  African law has no provision 
   covering computer viruses or computer security.


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