Robert Tappan Morris
Author of the Morris Worm
The 1988 worm that took down the early internet
Rating
96Impact score
Domains
WormsUnix internals
Scouting report
Released a self-replicating program from MIT in November 1988 that reinfected hosts far faster than intended and knocked out a large share of the machines on the internet. First person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Went on to become an MIT professor and a co-founder of Y Combinator.
Curator’s note
The accident that created the entire incident-response industry — CERT exists because of this.
Sources
- 01The Morris worm en.wikipedia.org
- 02United States v. Morris (1991) — the first CFAA conviction en.wikipedia.org