How Two Pakistani Brothers Created the First PC Virus


brain

The first computer virus was created by two brothers in Pakistan. Their company Brain Net is the largest internet service provider in Pakistan. So what was their motivation to create the virus in the first place?

At the time, coders Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi were just 17 and 24, respectively, running a computer store in Lahore, Pakistan. When they discovered that customers were circulating illegal copies of software they’d written, the brothers decided to retaliate. Brain was their attempt to scare pirates straight, but, as the creators tell it, the virus was never intended to be malicious. In a 2011 interview with F-Secure, a Finnish anti-virus company, the brothers called the bug a “friendly virus,” one that “was not made to destroy any data.” Why else would they have stamped the virus code with their names, their phone numbers, and the address of their shop?

The complete article

Jason Kersten — Mentalfloss

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