91av

In 1989, a worm infiltrated a large computer network that was called Internet

THREE decades ago, well before the rise of Google and Facebook, 91av ran an article about “a large computer network, based in America, called Internet”.

The internet was then in its infancy. In the 4 March 1989 issue, our reporter described it as “a ‘supernetwork’, connecting many networks round the world, including ones at NASA, American and Canadian universities, and two run by the Pentagon”.

But a mysterious program, a computer “worm”, had been deposited into the network. “At the time of the attack, no one knew what was happening and panic was widespread,” we reported.

A graduate student from Cornell University in New York, who was later convicted, had broken in by guessing computer passwords. He managed this because “Internet’s operating system (Unix) held the encrypted passwords in a file open to the public”, our reporter explained. The worm’s designer was able to test possible passwords without attracting attention. And back then, “there was no limit to the number of guesses allowed”.

Despite the confusion, the attack was innocuous by today’s standards: the worm “occupied spare memory and tied up computers, but did not destroy programs or data”.

Little was known about cybersecurity back then, and our feature was accompanied by explanations of Trojans, worms and viruses, and how experts were “concocting ‘vaccines’ to immunise computers from infection”.

Hacking has come a long way since “the Internet affair”: data breaches and cyberattacks have the potential to cause trillion-dollar losses per year. Last month, it was reported that Russia plans to temporarily disconnect itself from the global internet, as a test of its defences against a major cyberattack.

Our article’s conclusion is more salient than ever: “As people’s money, careers and possibly even their lives are dependent on the undisturbed functioning of computers, the electronic vandal cannot be tolerated.”