A Timeline of Cyberwar and Cybercrime

1973 |

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S. starts a program to look into technologies that link computer networks. |

1982 |

15-year-old Pennsylvanian Rich Skrenta writes the Elk Cloner program, the first computer virus ever found “in the wild.” |

1984 | Author of Neuromancer, William Gibson, coins the term “cyberspace.” |

1998 | * February A series of attacks on U.S. Department of Defense computers is dubbed Solar Sunrise, in which sensitive data was stolen across 500 systems, seemingly from servers around the world. The hack is traced to three teenagers in California. * May Stephen Glass is busted for fabricating, “Hack Heaven,” his story forThe New Republic. The article told the fictitious tale of Ian Retsil, a 15-year-old hacker who used a school computer to bypass the security settings of fictional software company Jukt Micronics. |

2000 | * MayQuaint by today’s standards, ILOVEYOU, or the Love Letter virus, was a computer worm that attacked tens of millions of Windows computers. A user is sent an email with “ILOVEYOU” in the subject line, and once opened, it overwrites image files and sends itself to the first 50 names in the user’s address book. |

2001 | * July Code Red, and still remembered for how quickly it spread, exploited a flaw in Microsoft operating systems that enabled it to deface and take down some websites. At one point it brought down the White House webpage, and forced other government agencies to take down their websites as well. |

2003 | * Anonymous is born on 4chan’s image board. * The U.S. Department of Homeland Security combines several of its cyberdefense offices into a new department, the National CyberSecurity Division. Its purpose is to protect government computers from hacks. * MayYet another email worm attacks users, but Fizzer was different—it went after money. Fizzer is the worm that sent out the now-everyday porn and pill email spam. It got so big that Microsoft offered...