Who invented the first computer virus? – Brain

In 1986, two Pakistani brothers Basit Farooq Ali and Amjad Farooq Ali created the first computer virus for MS-DOS which was named as “Brain”.  Basit was 17 years old and Amjad was 24 years old when they wrote this virus. Virus was spread through floppy disks. Boot sector of storage media was infected by Brain. It is interesting to know that it was loaded into computer even before operating system.

If we talk about the reasons or intensions behind creating it, Basit and Amjad wrote it because people were creating and spreading illegal copies of their software. Basit and Amjad had a computer store in Lahore, Pakistan.  They noticed that people were making and distributing unauthorized copies of software written by them, so they decided to teach them a lesson.  They wrote this virus in floppy disks and if someone tried to copy its content virus was also copied and activated on his PC.

This virus included brothers’ name, address and phone numbers. A message was shown on the PC infected with virus:

Welcome to Dengeon, 1986 Basit and Amjads (pvt) Ltd. BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAM BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN.. PHONE: 430791, 443248, 280530. Beware of this virus … Contact us for vaccination.

Brain is considered to be the first virus that spread all over the world in very short time. Soon it became out of control for them. They received calls from UK, US and many other countries. Amjad told that they received first call from Miami USA. In 1988, Time magazine of New York also wrote about this virus. Many people from all around the world called them and asked to fix this issue in an angry behavior.

Brothers told that they created virus to only show copy right message about the software not to damage customers’ computers. But many people complained that virus slowed down their computer caused data loss issues. Their virus gave idea of antivirus software to many programmers.

Although they received many calls full of rage, irritation and complaints, but it never proved dangerous for their business. They then turned their business to internet and telecommunication services. They have a company in Lahore, Brain Net. This company is considered to be the largest service provider in Pakistan. In 2011, Mikko Hypponen visited Pakistan and interviewed Amjad Farooq Alvi for a documentary.