37 years ago this week, the Morris worm infected 10% of the Internet within 24 hours — worm slithered out and sparked a new era in cybersecurity

Internet worm.

This week in 1988, Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris unleashed his eponymous worm upon the Internet. The wave of infections grew to 10% of the entire Internet within 24 hours, causing astronomically expensive damage for the time. However, the pioneering Morris worm malware wasn’t made with malice, says an FBI retrospective on the “programming error.” It was designed to gauge the size of the Internet, resulting in a classic case of unintended consequences.

Morris worm dissection