At first, it looked like just an isolated incident but according to Avast forum, they really had a bad false positive issue today.  Admittedly, they reported that this incident does not only affects Delphi binaries but Avast started flagging hundreds of innocent files as a “Win32:Delf-MZG” Trojan.  The files affected were high-profile programs produced by Adobe, Realtek sound card drivers, various media players among others.

The errant update had been issued around 12:15 a.m. GMT. A new update was issued at 5:50 a.m. GMT that corrected the problem.

A step-by-step guide on how to restore the files from the Virus Chest can be found here: http://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=376

Sophos, the company that first discovered the virus “W32/Induc-A”  stated that this virus “searches computers for installations of Delphi, then attempts to temporarily modify SysConst.pas, and compiles this to infect SysConst.dcu. The original SysConst.dcu can be restored from the backup made by the virus in SysConst.bak.”

Michael Swindell, VP of products at Embarcadero, responded when he learned about the virus affecting Delphi IDEs:

This is just another way for a virus to infect executable code. It makes it sound like Delphi or IDEs are now “vulnerable,” but they are no more or less vulnerable than any other of the thousands of EXEs and DLLs on every developers machine, and no more or less than they have been since viruses and trojans were first created. This is a clever trick, but it’s nothing to be more worried about than all of the other ways your dev machine can be attacked. Use virus scanners and keep them up to date.” http://sdtimes.com/blog/1508

Instructions for Removing the Virus:

By default, most anti-virus software do not scan .DCU (delphi compiled unit) and .pas (pascal unit) file extensions, so you need to turn on the option to scan all file extensions and do a full system scan. If the anti-virus detected the virus, replace the .dcu and .pas from a clean backup files.

It’s also a must to recompile all software from a cleaned Delphi and replaced the infected compiled executables.

With Delphi, you won’t need a cannon or tanks to kill hundreds of your enemies. No DLL to bring along with your exe file. Small compiled exe’s, as much as 30% less than the nearest competitor.

The monks in Shaolin temple are the most disciplined people around the community. They follow strict rules to achieve the high level of being a monk. Delphi programming is one of the most disciplined methods I learned in my career. Only few follows such a methodology in programming.

The only true RAD and object-oriented programming in town. No opponents can beat Delphi in this area.

Database integration. Aside from other Borland (now Codegear)products, show me a programming language that can do Master-Detail table without writing any code. That’s the power of RAD, the power of Delphi.

Like monks who can determine a person’s character by looking through his eyes, Delphi shows the level of debugs in your program. Moreover, if you want to drill down more, Delphi can show you even the program in the machine level. If you can understand what each ? means.

Visual Component Library (VCL) with source? Yup!!! Having the source code can give you the right muscle that you can use beyond your strength. With thousands of third-parties components, and do I need to tell you that mostly are freeware or shareware in nature?. Why invent a new kick technique when a 360 degrees, full house can disable your opponent?

Got a new technology? Don’t be surprised, if you learn that Delphi supports technologies even before its inventor launches it? Just to name a few like XML, Corba, Midas, COM/DCOM, WAP, SMS, SOAP and Shampoo? tell me what you’ve got?

Just like Chinese KungFu techniques are being used in Hollywood films like The Matrix, Delphi will surely give you the power, grace and strength to beat your opponent.

taken from my Geocities blog(?), written in 2001