Computer Virus turns 25 Today

[Tews]

TWENTY-FIVE years ago today, two brothers in Pakistan came up with a new and novel way to catch out software pirates.

As it turned out, they also gave birth to one of the greatest annoyances in the modern world.

"Brain", considered to be the first major personal computer virus, was created on January 19, 1986, by Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi at their computer shop in Lahore, Pakistan.

From there the program spread across the world — one infected floppy disk at a time.

At its peak Brain had even reached the offices of a government department in Canada, on the other side of the globe.


source

 

[Dzomlija]

I'm almost reconsidering using AVG again, since it would appear they have the background support of an anti-virus pioneer on their side.

 

[Golden]

Brain! I remember that. Does anyone remember the "Stoned" virus which made its debut not long after?

 

[noobvious]

I can't quite bring myself to sing Happy Birthday....:roflmao:

 

[spinifex]

Some interesting facts on the net.

Virus programs

The Creeper virus was first detected on ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet, in the early 1970s.[10] Creeper was an experimental self-replicating program written by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies in 1971.[11] Creeper used the ARPANET to infect DEC PDP-10 computers running the TENEX operating system.[12] Creeper gained access via the ARPANET and copied itself to the remote system where the message, "I'm the creeper, catch me if you can!" was displayed. The Reaper program was created to delete Creeper.[13]
A program called "Elk Cloner" was the first computer virus to appear "in the wild" — that is, outside the single computer or lab where it was created.[14] Written in 1981 by Richard Skrenta, it attached itself to the Apple DOS 3.3 operating system and spread via floppy disk.[14][15] This virus, created as a practical joke when Skrenta was still in high school, was injected in a game on a floppy disk. On its 50th use the Elk Cloner virus would be activated, infecting the computer and displaying a short poem beginning "Elk Cloner: The program with a personality."
The first PC virus in the wild was a boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain,[16] created in 1986 by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter piracy of the software they had written.

 

[GEWB]

Brain! I remember that. Does anyone remember the "Stoned" virus which made its debut not long after?

Yup. I destroyed my copy of it only a couple years ago (ok, so I'm a pack rat).

 

[jfar]

Happy Birthday.

 

[Anthony]

Please don't promote this stuff, its in the same ball park as Piracy imho!!

 

[Jacee]

I've been working against this stuff since 2002 ... and it evolves again with new code.

 

[techmonkey74]

Happy Birthday!!???

 

[allend66]

The Hall of Flame?

 

[allend66]

Really? Nobody? Come on guys, that's a quality pun. Hall of Flame.. <chuckle>..

 

[Mercurial]

happy bday virus !

bad for you eset was born !

 

[Joshatdot]

I remember the 1st virus we had in our house .. I can't remember how it happened or how we fixed it. But when my dad turned on the computer all it said was:

"your computer is now stoned"

or something like that

 

[scruffy1]

Brain! I remember that. Does anyone remember the "Stoned" virus which made its debut not long after?

yep

bought it home on a floppy from bali in 1991

 

[vierasniper]

happy birthday!!!!



@allend66

dude the hall of flame is real haha
is that what you were going for?

 

[BlueBear]

Hall of Shame