The First Computer Viruses

Most historians agree that the first virus to replicate from PC to PC was "Brain". The story goes that Basit and Amjaad Farooq Alvi, owners of a store called Brain Computer Services, wrote the boot sector virus to stealthily leave their contact information on infected computers. Basit and Amjaad claimed they wrote the code to ascertain the extent of software piracy in Pakistan (they were, after all, software vendors). But Brain soon leaked through the Pakistani borders and quite harmlessly infected computers worldwide. The first virus internet security programs were written soon thereafter.