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Patent Title: Generic disinfection of programs infected with a computer virus

Assignee: IBM
Patent Number: US5613002
Issue Date: 03-18-1997
Application Number:
File Date:11-21-1994


Abstract: A method for restoring a computer program infected with a computer virus to its non-viral condition. The method uses certain information about an uninfected host program recorded prior to infection without relying upon pre-existing knowledge of the computer virus. The method includes: recording a checksum of the uninfected original program, the length of the program, and information pertaining to bytes located near the beginning and end of the original program; and, subsequent to any modification of the original program that is deemed suspicious, generating one or more trial reconstructions based on the recorded information and information contained in the modified file; comparing a checksum of each generated trial reconstruction with the checksum of the original program stored in the database; and outputting a trial reconstruction as the original uninfected program if its checksum matches that of the original program.

Notes:

Link to USPTO

IBM Pledge dated 1/11/2005