189:, and avoids infecting hard disks by checking the most significant bit of the BIOS drive number being accessed. Brain does not infect the disk if the bit is set, unlike other viruses at the time, which paid no attention to disk partitioning and consequently destroyed data stored on hard disks by treating them in the same way as floppy disks. Brain often went undetected, partially due to this deliberate non-destructiveness, especially when the user paid little to no attention to the low speed of floppy disk access.
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224:, the United States, and elsewhere, demanding that they disinfect their machines, they were stunned and tried to explain to the outraged callers that their motivation had not been malicious. Their phone lines were overloaded. The brothers, with another brother, Shahid Farooq Alvi, continued business in Pakistan, as Brain NET Internet service providers with a company called Brain Telecommunication Limited.
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only. The cryptic message "Welcome to the
Dungeon", a safeguard and reference to an early programming forum on Dungeon BBS, appeared after a year because the brothers licensed a beta version of the code. The brothers could not be contacted to receive the final release of this version of the program.
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This program was originally used to track a heart monitoring program for the IBM PC, and people were distributing illicit copies of the disks. This tracking program was supposed to stop and track illegal copies of the disk, however the program also sometimes used the last five kilobytes on an Apple
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Welcome to the
Dungeon (c) 1986 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 ....$ #@%$
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went to
Pakistan to interview Amjad for a documentary. Being inspired by this documentary and its widespread popularity, a group of Pakistani bloggers interviewed Amjad, under the banner of Bloggerine.
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The virus came complete with address and three phone numbers, and a message that told the user that their machine was infected and to call them for inoculation:
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drive and makes seven kilobytes of memory unavailable to DOS. Brain was written by Amjad Farooq Alvi, who at the time lived in Chah Miran, near
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with a copy of the virus. The real boot sector is moved to another sector and marked as bad. Infected disks usually have five
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of bad sectors. The disk label is usually changed to ©Brain, and the following text can be seen in infected boot sectors:
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There are many minor and major variations to that version of the text. The virus slows down the
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that was released in its first form on 19 January 1986, and is considered to be the first
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19:"Brain virus" redirects here. For viruses that affect the central nervous system, see
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When the brothers began to receive a large number of phone calls from people in the
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PHONE: 430791,443248,280530. Beware of this VIRUS.... Contact us for vaccination...
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Welcome to the
Dungeon © 1986 Amjads (pvt). BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAM
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floppy, making additional saves to the disk by other programs impossible.
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341:"Documentary examines the inception of PC viruses 25 years ago"
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Pakistani Brain (IBM MS-DOS PC Computer Virus) and its impact
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Information on the Brain Virus And
Variants at textfiles.com
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Elmer-Dewitt, Philip; Munro, Ross H. (September 26, 1988).
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from illegal copying, and it was supposed to target
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Brain: Searching for the first PC virus in
Pakistan
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366:"Searching for the first PC virus in Pakistan"
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227:In 2011, 25 years after Brain was released,
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436:Description of (c)Brain at F-Secure site
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267:Timeline of computer viruses and worms
125:Brain affects the PC by replacing the
16:1986 IBM PC boot sector computer virus
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38:The boot sector of an infected floppy
105:is the industry standard name for a
21:Central nervous system viral disease
464:Fighting viruses, defending the net
288:"PC virus celebrates 20th birthday"
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679:Information technology in Pakistan
316:"Technology: You Must Be Punished"
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182:Brain lacks code for dealing with
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286:Leyden, John (January 19, 2006).
339:Acohido, Brian (March 8, 2011).
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170:magazine they had written it to
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172:protect their medical software
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396:"To The Roots Of PC Virus"
204:IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN
117:(IBM PC) and compatibles.
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164:. The Alvi brothers told
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176:copyright infringement
154:Lahore Railway Station
328:on December 14, 2008.
115:IBM Personal Computer
76:IBM Personal Computer
47:Ashar (older variant)
689:Hacking in the 1980s
674:Pakistani inventions
504:Hacking in the 1980s
588:Christmas Tree EXEC
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613:Lamer Exterminator
418:"BrainNET website"
80:IBM PC compatibles
53:Original author(s)
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684:1986 in computing
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376:on March 16, 2011
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57:Amjad Farooq Alvi
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598:Father Christmas
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420:. Archived from
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65:19 January 1986
62:Initial release
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515:← —
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461:Mikko Hyppönen
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411:External links
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229:Mikko Hyppönen
222:United Kingdom
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111:computer virus
107:computer virus
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424:on 2005-02-04
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202:BLOCK ALLAMA
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669:Boot viruses
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545:The Analyzer
426:. Retrieved
422:the original
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378:. Retrieved
374:the original
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348:. Retrieved
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297:. Retrieved
293:The Register
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187:partitioning
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618:Morris worm
578:Byte Bandit
550:Markus Hess
537:Individuals
150:floppy disk
131:floppy disk
127:boot sector
121:Description
92:Boot sector
44:Other names
663:Categories
593:Elk Cloner
428:2004-05-01
400:Bloggerine
273:References
648:WANK Worm
623:Ping-Pong
608:Jerusalem
603:Ghostball
380:March 21,
345:USA Today
299:March 21,
184:hard disk
135:kilobytes
519:Timeline
457:TED talk
370:F-Secure
350:March 9,
240:See also
233:F-Secure
162:Pakistan
113:for the
71:Platform
583:Cascade
560:Malware
447:YouTube
262:Rootkit
643:Virdem
638:Stoned
633:Scores
158:Lahore
573:Brain
524:1990s
156:, in
129:of a
103:Brain
27:Brain
568:1260
382:2011
352:2011
321:Time
301:2011
167:Time
87:Type
628:SCA
459:by
445:on
231:of
143:@!!
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
