When you buy through affiliate links in our content, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn What Does Ping Pong Virus Mean?
The Ping-pong virus is a boot sector virus that infects the DOS. It was discovered at the University of Turin (Italy) in 1988. A system corrupted by this virus has a white spot bouncing across the screen, touching all corners.
The Ping-pong virus is also known as Bouncing Ball, VerCruz, Italian A or Bouncing dot.
Techopedia Explains Ping Pong Virus
The Ping-pong virus is (was) a virus commonly detected in DOS. For a while, it was one of the most widespread boot sector viruses. The virus residing in memory becomes active when the disk is accessed; a tiny spot bouncing all over the screen then appears. Intel 286-based machines have a high possibility of crashing upon the appearance of the bouncing ball.
The Ping-pong virus existed mainly in three forms: Ping-Pong.A, Ping-Pong.B and Ping-Pong.C. The first form only infects floppy drives, whereas the last two both infect the boot sector of a hard disk. Although Ping-pong.A is no longer thought to be active, the two other variants are still active, though they are obviously not significant threats given that their age and that they targeted DOS.
