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Information Technology:  Then and Now

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”  ~Star Wars

Believe it or not, there was a time when cybersecurity was something you maybe saw in movies, whereas now in 2021, having effective strategies in place to keep your business safe is as vital as air is to so many creatures of our world.  As we are entering Information Technology month, we thought we would take a look back at the history of cybersecurity

It all began as research…

Believe it or not, the first “cyber attack” grew out of a research project by Bob Thomas.  During his research, he realized that computer programs could move through a network and leave a small trail behind. As a result, Bob Thomas built a program called “Creeper” that was designed to travel through Tenex terminals connected to the early ARPANET.  A testament to his sense of humor was the worm was designed to print the message on the screen “I’m the Creeper: Catch me if you can.”  It’s fairly certain that Bob had no intentions of his creation being used for malicious means and was just playing a game.

Piggybacking off of Bob Thomas’s research, the creator of email, Ray Tomlinson, created the first known computer worm.  Ray took Bob’s Creeper and made it self-replicating.  He then went on to develop the first antivirus software which he named Reaper.  The goal?  To chase Creeper and delete it.

But things changed quickly…

Before Creeper and Reaper, the main computer security threats were pretty cut and dried, as the only form of cyber threats was the risk of humans reading documents they should not and was easily solved with effective passwords.  It wasn’t until 1986 that the German hacker, Marcus Hess, was able to exploit a weakness in an internet gateway from Berkeley and gained access to over 400 military computers, including mainframes housed in the Pentagon.  His purpose?  To sell the stolen secrets to the Russian KGB.  His efforts ultimately failed when astronomer Clifford Stoll detected the intrusions and turned the tables on Marcus.

And then there was the Morris Worm

In 1988, Robert Morris wanted to see just how big the internet was, so he created a program that would propagate across networks and infiltrate Unix terminals and then copy itself.  It was this last part that proved to be the problem, as the Morris worm multiplied so aggressively that slowed internet connections so significantly that it caused untold damage.  Apparently the start of something far bigger – and scarier – the Morris worm spurred the creation of increasingly deadly viruses and malware and took advantage of Ray Tomlinson’s creeper by using the email function inherent in Unix systems.

Antivirus software became a household name

Not long after, the antivirus industry came into its own with the development of AV Scanners.  The software scanned all the binaries on the assigned system and compared them to a database of known issues.  Early versions were plagued by false problems and extensive resource use, causing frustration by users and potentially causing them to deactivate the scanners.

The rest is history

From tens of thousands in the early 1990s to 5 million new samples every year by 2007, the cyberthreat was truly a household (or business-hold) name.  7 years later, in 2014, estimates surfaced that put the daily malware samples being created was upward of 500,000.  Cybersecurity turned from a defensive strategy to an offensive.  Thanks to the creation of fileless malware, inherent system vulnerabilities, and others, there was no way IT could guarantee protection even with next-generation Endpoint Protection Platforms and Anti-virus software.

The standard procedure now calls for endpoint detection and response, or EDR.  EDR shifted the burden from the software looking for code to humans deciphering data generated by the EDR and deploying strategies in real-time to counteract any suspicious activity.  While effective, this strategy was very time-consuming and required a large amount of staff to manage.

At a glance timeline

1911: The Computing Tabulating-Recording Company was formed after a merger between three technology giants of the time: The Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, and the Computing Scale Company.

1924: The Computing Tabulating-Recording company changes its name to International Business Machines.

1940: Mark 1 was created by Harvard University and was the first large-scale digital computer.  It was programmed using punch cards.

1945: John Von Neumann published the first discussion of computer architecture and stored programming entitled “First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC.”

1971: Apple computer founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, meet and begin collaborating on the development of the Apple Computer.

1971: Creeper and Reaper developed as the first worm and antivirus software

1973: Xerox researcher, Bob Metcalfe, wrote a memo that resulted in the creation of the Ethernet.

1975: Bill Gates and the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) collaborate on the creation of a system he termed BASIC to work on their Altair 8800 Computer.  Microsoft is born.

1986: German hacker gains access to military computers and Pentagon mainframes

1988: Robert Morris created the Morris worm to discern the size of the internet

1989: A Proposal written by Tim Berners-Lee outlines the concept for the global hypertext system.

1990’s:  Antivirus software becomes a household name.

1993: The World Wide Web is now freely available for everyone.

1997: Deep Blue, designed by IBM and designed to play chess, beats the current chess master, Gary Kasperov, leading to the creation of Watson which then competed on Jeopardy.

2007: A record 5 Million new samples of viruses were produced.

2014: Estimates reached 500,000 unique malware samples were produced every day.

2017: EternalBlue was leaked by the Shadow Brokers and was used as part of the WannaCry ransomware attack.  It was also used in the NotPeyta attack and possibly in the Retefe banking trojan.  It is immune to anti-virus and EPP.

Important Dates for April:
April 4th: Microsoft’s Birthday
April 11th: National 8 Track Day
April 15th: Tax Day
April 25th: National Telephone Day
April 30th: World-Wide Web Birthday

 

Reminder!  The tax deadline for filing both business and personal taxes is April 15th and malicious sources are attacking both consumers and businesses looking for information that can harm you or your business.  Be sure you have the proper security controls in place on both your home and work technology.  Not sure how to check?  Give us a call at 619 840-7490 or an email at ComNET.MSP@gmail.com  and we can help.

 

Letter from the Michael

Spring has sprung!  Winter seemed to go on forever, but here we are now, enjoying warmer weather and budding trees and flowers…unless you have allergies.  Then it’s a two-edged sword.

I thought we would have some fun this month.  Tell us about the best April Fools joke (clean)  you played on a friend or coworker or one that was played on you.  Post it to our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/URComputerGuy and let’s see who had the best one!

Michael Marquardt

 

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