If You Build it, They Will Come

It seems that for every scripting language that is powerful enoughto host a virus, a virus will be written for it eventually. It alsodoesn't seem to matter if the audience for that scripting language isvery restricted, or that the scripts might not be shared with anyoneelse.

This brings us to the first virus for the Autodesk Maya 3D scriptinglanguage - "Maya Embedded Language" or "MEL" - which we call MEL.Odorous.

This virus is simply a proof-of-concept. It begins by searching inthe current directory for the .MEL file that contains its code. Itreads this code into a buffer that will be used for replication. Thenit searches again in the current directory for other .MEL files. Forany .MEL file that is found to not be already infected, the virus willprepend itself to the file. There is no payload, and it does nothingbut replicate.

Such a virus poses no threat to anyone. It shows that a virus ispossible in the language, but that should have been obvious from thefact that the script has sufficient access to the file system. All thata virus needs are the functions to enumerate, open, read, and write.It's not rocket science. The virus is a proof-of-concept, but it's notmuch of a concept, and it's not a good proof.