Backstory of The "Brain" Computer Virus (1980s) — Transcript

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1. 0:00Imagine buying a cheap computer disk on
2. 0:02vacation and accidentally bringing home
3. 0:04one of the first sophisticated computer
4. 0:06viruses. In the 1980s, American
5. 0:08travelers in Pakistan visited a small
6. 0:10shop called Brain Computer Services for
7. 0:12discounted software. It seemed like a
8. 0:14steal, but those floppy disks carried a
9. 0:17hidden passenger, a self-replicating
10. 0:19virus that spread every time the disk
11. 0:21was shared or used on another computer.
12. 0:23This virus, called [music] Brain, found
13. 0:25its way onto at least 100,000 floppy
14. 0:27disks, sometimes with data-destroying
15. 0:29impact. Buried inside the code was a
16. 0:32message, "Welcome to the dungeon," along
17. 0:34with the creators' names and phone
18. 0:36numbers. It was created by two brothers,
19. 0:38Amjad [music] and Basit Alvi,
20. 0:40self-taught programmers from Lahore.
21. 0:42They originally built it to track people
22. 0:44copying their software without
23. 0:45permission. The idea was simple. If
24. 0:48someone used an unauthorized copy, the
25. 0:50virus would infect their system [music]
26. 0:51and force them to reach out for a fix.
27. 0:53It was a kind of early digital tracking
28. 0:55system, but way more aggressive.
29. 0:57According to the Alvi brothers, Brain
30. 0:59[music] wasn't meant to be destructive
31. 1:01at all. They described it as a friendly
32. 1:03virus, more of a protective tool than a
33. 1:05weapon. In fact, they even developed an
34. 1:07antivirus alongside [music] it to help
35. 1:09stop its spread and assist affected
36. 1:11users. Still, once those disks started
37. 1:14traveling internationally, the virus
38. 1:15[music] spread far beyond what they
39. 1:17expected, jumping from user to user
40. 1:19across the world. [music]
41. 1:21By the time they stopped in 1987, the
42. 1:23damage was already done, and Brain had
43. 1:25become [music] one of the first viruses
44. 1:27to prove just how fast digital threats
45. 1:29could spread. For more of our media,
46. 1:31visit Cybercrime Magazine.com.