The First computer which appeared "in the wild"
A Computer Virus is a computer program that can spread from one computer to another and can also replicate itself.
According to computer experts, for a virus to be considered "in the wild", it must be spread as a result of normal day-to-day operations between unintended users' computers. Although there are an estimated 47,000 computer viruses, fewer than 600 are said to roam outside laboratories and research facilities — hence, in the wild. These wild viruses are the most important threat to computers.
Wild viruses typically have a harmful payload and the ability to wipe all computer files, sometimes damaging the computer's BIOS.
The elk cloner did not intentionally cause harm, but managed to spread widely. Creating the first computer virus to spread "in the wild".
On the Microsoft OS platform.
The first IBM PC after a 4-year hiatus, the self-cloning virus "Brain" that had also spread to "Wild", was created in 1986.
Brain is the industry standard name for a computer virus that was released in its form in January 1986 and is considered the first computer virus for the boot sector virus MS-DOS.
Brain was written by two Pakistani brothers, Basit Farooq Alvi and Amjad Farooq Alvi from Lahore, Pakistan. He told Time magazine that he wrote his medical software to protect it from piracy, and that it would only target copyright infringers.
The brain affected the IBM PC computer by replacing the boost area of a floppy disk with a copy of the virus. The original boot sector was moved to another sector and described as bad. The infected disk usually contains 5 kilobytes of corroded areas.
The boot sector of the infected floppy
The virus came complete with the brothers address and phone numbers and a message "Beware of this VIRUS . . . Contact us for vaccination...."
This tracking program was supposed to stop and track illegal copies of the disk.