(c)Brain
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(c)Brain (the industry standard name being Brain) is a 1987 computer virus that infects DOS File Allocation Table file systems. The virus is also known as Lahore, Pakistani, Pakistani Brain, and UIUC.
(c)Brain is a boot sector infector that moves the boot sector and replaces it with a copy of the virus. The real boot sector is moved to another sector and marked as bad. The Disk label is also changed to (c)Brain. Infected disks have 3kb of bad sectors. The following text can be seen in infected boot sectors: "Welcome to the Dungeon (c) 1986 Brain & Amjads (pvt) Ltd VIRUS_SHOE RECORD V9.0 Dedicated to the dynamic memories of millions of viruses who are no longer with us today - Thanks GOODNESS!! BEWARE OF THE er..VIRUS : this program is catching program follows after these messages....$#@%$@!!" There are many minor and major variations to that version of the text. The virus slows down the floppy disk drive and makes 7KB of memory unavailable to DOS.
This virus was written by two brothers who lived in Chahmiran, Lahore, Pakistan. The brothers told TIME magazine they had written it to protect their medical software from software pirates. The virus, supposedly, was going to target copyright infringers only.
The virus came complete with the brothers' real address and three phone numbers, and a message that said the user's machine had been infected and for innoculation the user should call them. The following message was: "Welcome to the Dungeon (c) 1986 Basit * Amjad (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..."
When they started getting a ton of phone calls from people in USA, Britain, and elsewhere, demanding them to disinfect their machines, the brothers were stunned and tried to explain to the outraged callers that their motivation had not been malicious. They ended up having to get their phone lines cut off and regretted that they had revealed their contact info in the first place.
The brothers are still in business in Pakistan as internet service providers in their company called Brain Limited.
Businessweek magazine called the virus Pakistani flu.
Ashar is an older version of Brain. There are six variants where the message is different.
See also: notable computer viruses and worms
External link
- Story of the virus from Brain Limited (http://www.brain.net.pk/aboutus.htm) - This link has the actual message of the virus, complete with the phone numbers, etc.