3871 entries. Last updated May 18, 2013.

The First Computer Worm to Attract Wide Attention (November 2, 1988)


The first computer worm to attract wide attention, the Morris worm or Internet worm, written by Robert Tappan Morris, a graduate student at Cornell, quickly infected a great number of computers on the Internet.

"It propagated through a number of bugs in BSD Unix and its derivatives. Morris himself was convicted under the US Computer Crime and Abuse Act and received three years probation, community service and a fine in excess of $10,000."