For the past 10 years, I’ve been sitting on a archive of ancient malware that is no longer available for the public. I was inspired by danooct1, who got me into the hobby of hacking, software development, and ultimately, retrocomputing. While I am no longer interested in most malware, occasionally I will return to disassemble a virus or two, as they often hide interesting tricks and further my own knowledge of assembly for DOS. Most of the files in this archive aren’t even in the ‘popular’ MS-DOS virus archive that has been shared around on Reddit, Github, and the like. This malware is essentially history, and deserves to see the light of day (albeit carefully), and should be demonstrated by people who KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING! The only reason I feel comfortable sharing this is because all of these files are in the database of every single reputable antivirus scanner out there, and have been for the last 10 years. The instant you unpack them, they will be zapped.

Malware is not a toy. You download and extract the files at your own risk. A virtual machine is highly recommended. You are responsible for your own data loss. At least one of the pieces of Windows XP malware in this collection managed to escape the virtual machine I ran it on and partially formatted my physical hard drive. (still no idea how that happened btw)

Malware is not a toy. You have been warned numerous times. The archive is password-protected. If you do not know what you are doing then leave.

Malware is not a toy. You will most likely accidentally infect yourself at least once.

Once again, malware is not a toy.

Stay safe, and take care. (that one’s for you, Dan 🙂 )

~MajorCadence