Pakistani Brothers' PC Virus Helped Create $20 Billion Industry
The year was 1986. Most personal computers used floppy disks to boot and to move files from one computer to another. Floppy disk was also the medium used by Amjad and Basit Alvi, two Pakistani brothers living in Lahore, to create and spread history's first known PC virus called "The Brain". Here's how Mikko Hypponen , a software security expert, described it last year at DEF CON , world's largest hackers convention held in Las Vegas: Creators of First PC Virus: Amjad Farooq and Basit Farooq Alvi "It's surprisingly advanced, and it has surprising features, including a capability of hiding itself. So when your PC is infected by Brain, and you go and look at your floppies, you will not see Brain on the floppies. It's watching you watching it, and if you try to look at the copy of Brain, it fools you and gives you a clean image of a floppy instead. And we would call this a stealth virus, at the time.... These guys weren't evil at all. They...