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

The Morris worm, released in November 1988, infected 10% of the Internet (approximately 6,000 of 60,000 connected systems) within 24 hours. Created by Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris to gauge Internet size, the worm exploited vulnerabilities in BSD UNIX systems' email and finger programs. Written in C, it caused massive slowdowns and system crashes at institutions including NASA, Berkeley, and Stanford, despite not being designed to damage files. Morris was prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, receiving a fine, probation, and community service. The incident occurred before the World Wide Web existed, when NSFNET served as the Internet backbone, and sparked the beginning of modern cybersecurity practices.