Morris Worm Hits Internet: Cybersecurity Crisis Begins
Robert Tappan Morris, a 23-year-old Cornell University graduate student, released a self-replicating program into the early internet on November 2, 1988. He intended it as a harmless experiment to measure the network's size. A programming error caused the worm to replicate far faster than intended, overwhelming roughly 6,000 computers, about 10% of the internet at the time. Systems at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, and NASA were knocked offline. Damages were estimated at $100,000 to $10 million. Morris became the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, receiving three years' probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $10,050 fine. The incident led to the creation of CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) at Carnegie Mellon, the first organization dedicated to internet security incident response.
November 2, 1988
38 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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