Malicious Mobile Code

Risk Assessment -- Low

If I had published this book three years ago, I would have ranked DOS viruses as a medium to high risk. But times have changed and DOS viruses no longer compromise the majority of malicious code. As recorded in the June 2001 edition of the Wild List, only 14 DOS viruses were noted out of the 214 reported programs. However, none made the top 20 of anybody’s list, and they only accounted for 3 percent of malicious code reported to the ICSA Labs in their Computer Virus Prevalence Survey . If you disable booting from drive A, the chances of getting a DOS virus are remote. As DOS becomes history and Windows and other systems take over, DOS viruses will fade way.