Large pieces of the internet came to a standstill, infected by the runaway program. It began to copy itself exponentially, crashing computer after computer. Unfortunately for Morris, the program took his copy command a little differently than he expected. He did not test the program on a smaller scale before sending it out but was sure it would take the worm a long time to go through the entire internet. To make it harder to get rid of, he instructed the worm to copy itself even after it was recognized by a user. If deleting the worm was too easy Morris wouldn’t be able to accurately collect his data. In addition to trying to give himself more time to run the program by sending it out from MIT, Morris took other measures to make sure his experiment would succeed. Morris intended to use the worm to answer a question for him: how big is the internet? The worm exploited a vulnerability in the Unix system that allowed it to enter almost any computer. Robert Morris was an alumnus of Harvard University and was working to complete a graduate degree at Cornell when he released the worm from an MIT computer, hoping it would seem as though it was being sent out by someone there. Cyber security isn’t something that users are concerned about.Įnter the Morris worm. Hackers do exist, but they only go after big fish and would never bother with your insignificant personal computer. At this point, a computer is a luxury and not everyone can afford one. And that’s because a nice desktop computer is still going to set you back about 1,000 dollars. We are just beginning to explore its vastly open world of connectivity which has only recently been accessible by laypeople. The internet is a completely different animal than it is today. Bush is running for president, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have conquered pop culture, and the cinematic masterpiece Coming to America has just hit theaters. As interesting and fun as being a cyber security major can be, students need to remember that what may start out as probing vulnerabilities out of simple curiosity can have disastrous results if you aren’t trained and careful. Over the years, it has drawn all kinds of people into the challenge. The world of cybersecurity is an exciting, constantly changing puzzle. Robert Morris Jr., intent on discovering how big the internet was, accidentally set loose the first ever internet worm upon thousands of helpless computers. It was thirty years ago this November that a young grad student changed the world of cyber security forever. The floppy disk with the source code of the Morris worm is now kept in the Boston Museum of Science.
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