There are tons of viruses for Amiga such as Byte Bandit. Most of them are Bootblock, Link, System, File, and Trojan types. They were made by various coders with a mission to show their coding skills by damaging people’s software.
Some of the viruses managed to destroy your Amiga gaming evening totally, while other is easily killed by software such as VirusZ and VirusChecker.
Byte Bandit is one of the most known viruses for Classic Amiga because it appeared so early.
Over 32 variants of the Byte Bandit Virus for Amiga
Byte Bandit is a virus that first appeared in 1987. It is a virus that messes up the booting process of Amiga floppies and hard drives. It infiltrates the boot sector and therefore is seen as a computer virus. It is however not the destructive type.
There are over 32 variants of Byte Bandit that are registered and they all do the same. They mockup your bootblock.
Byte Bandit is not destructive, but it can harm your perfect Amiga gaming night as it is hard to get rid of it once you get it. It gets hooked into your system. The virus remains a reset resident and causes system data corruption and system failures if you don’t kill it fast enough.
Byte Bandit 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.
Byte Bandit spreads fast, so once you see it make sure to use the latest VirusZ anti-virus software to remove it.
Some of the Byte Bandit virus variants are:
Byte Bandit Error
Byte Bandit Forpib Digital Age
Byte Bandit Forpib Powerbomb
Byte Bandit NoBanditAnymore
Byte Bandit VIPHS
You can check all of the Byte Bandit types of Bootblock viruses at the Amiga Viruses Encyclopedia site.
Most Known destructive viruses for Amiga
In contrast to the quite lame Byte Bandit virus, there are viruses that are way more destructive for Amiga.
Three of the worst viruses are known as CCCP, Lamer Exterminator, and SADDAM but there are thousands of viruses. Byte Bandit has never been destructive as it only messes up the bootblock. It just spread automatically from system to system, but you can save your gaming night if removed.
Byte Bandit had aliases such as the Hauke virus, but it made no attempt to disguise itself as modern viruses, trojans, and worms do.
What sort of Byte Bandit experience did you have?
