Revenge is a dish best served … via floppy disk?
Forty years ago, two Pakistani brothers proved the floppy disk was a highly effective response to wrongdoing. Reports of the first PC virus, “Brain,” began circulating in January 1986. The brothers—Amjad (24) and Basit (17) Farooq—had written some medical software and were dismayed to learn that pirated copies were circulating.
They took action by writing some more code. According to Time magazine, the Farooq brothers created pirated copies of popular contemporary programs, such as Lotus 1-2-3 and WordStar, and began selling them in Lahore to backpacking Americans at the low price of $1.50 per disk. The floppies had a little “gift with purchase”: the Brain virus. When a floppy carrying Brain was inserted into a computer, the disk would check the system’s BIOS for pirated software. If the computer was clean, Brain had no payload. If pirated software was detected, Brain would overwrite the floppy disk’s memory and slow the hard drive. Subsequent floppy disks inserted into a Brain-infected computer would then carry the virus themselves.
The highly sophisticated virus also inserted a personalized message from the brothers into the boot sector. The message said, “WELCOME TO THE DUNGEON” and shared their phone number and address. Brain’s victims began calling the Farooqs for assistance eradicating the virus, and eventually they released a program for Brain’s removal.
The Farooqs are now the CEO and CTO of BrainNET Fiber, and the company’s website includes the history of the Brain virus.
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This post originally appeared on Smarter MSP.