1969 - 1979: One Small Step for Man...

In 1969, The US Department of Defence Advanced Research Projects (Darpa) established a military network connection (Arpanet) between the University of California Los Angeles and The Stanford Research Institute. The first steps towards an Internet were born. Two years later, the first computer virus - ‘Creeper’ - was created. In 1978, the first ever spam email was sent to 400 Arpanet users, inviting them to a product demo. A year later, the US National Science Foundation established a non-military network between American universities. 

1980 - 1989: An apple for the Teacher? 

1980 saw the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of shares in a new technology company called Apple (market was capped at £1.7bn). A year later, IBM launched their personal computer, which became a popular choice for many businesses. 1982 witnessed the birth of the Elk Cloner virus, and the subsequent challenges for IT security teams to prevent other advanced viruses. A US National Science Foundation created a network in 1986 that linked existing university supercomputer networks together. With a market cap of $770m, Microsoft IPO was launched in 1986. Gradually, as technology became more accessible and affordable to industry and the general public, hackers were producing more viruses and malware: 1987 (Stoned virus) and in 1988 (“Morris”), the first computer worm.

1990 – 1999: The Birth of the World Wide Web

The last decade in the twentieth century saw the first search engine "Archie" being created by a student and the end of Arpanet, which was decommissioned. But 1991 will be remembered as a key moment in the history of technology: Tim Lee at CERN introduced the World Wide Web. This resulted in an explosion across the developed countries: computers were increasingly viewed as more than just a tool for industry and business. The launch of Amazon and EBay in 1995 drove the personal computing market, as 100 million worldwide online users discovered the possibilities this new world offered them. By 1996, there were 18,957 live websites across the Internet, and companies started to embrace the opportunities for web-based communication: Microsoft launched Internet Explorer (1995); Google (1996) and AOL released Instant Messenger (1997). In 1999, music sharing service Napster was founded and the first online shops started trading. 

2000 -2009: From Passive Users to Active Consumers

The advent of the Year 2000 sparked a worldwide panic, as people feared a technological Y2K Armageddon; believing that computers would crash at midnight on New Years Eve. Malicious coders continued to wreck havoc by creating and releasing new viruses at an ever increasing rate (the ‘Michelangelo’ in 1992; the first email virus (‘Happy99’) in 2000); the “iloveyou” in 2000, which infected 50 million users within 10 days of being released; and ‘CodeRed’ - the first computer virus to spread intuitively without human interaction. 

Wikipedia started in 2001. During this decade, internet users started to change their internet habits from being passive consumers, to starting to create, add and actively change, add content to, shape and design the internet, through social media (MySpace, LinkedIn, Skype and Word Press launched in 2003; Facebook, Flickr and Vimeo in 2004) and the launch of YouTube and Reddit in 2005; and Twitter in 2006. The iTunes and Safari browser were released in 2003, a year before Google's IPO was offered with a market cap of £23bn

‘Cabir’ was the first mobile virus created in 2005. Since the 1980’s, mobile phone technology had developed at a pace and phone manufacturers were keen to offer access to the World Wide Web for their users. This created opportunities for viruses and malware to be targeted at the operating systems of not only computers, but also mobile phones, pagers and other new technology systems. 

By 2005, the number of worldwide Internet users broke the 1 billion mark. A year later, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65bn. However, technology took another step forward in 2008 when Apple launched the App Store and the iPhone – a portable device that could store and play your music, take photos, call and text your contacts and combine everything you need into one small device. In the same year, Facebook became the world's most popular social network; Google launched Chrome; and the online music jukebox, Spotify, launched. 

2010 – 2019 – Handheld Technology: Anytime & Anywhere 

Apple launched the iPad in 2010, as personal computing became handheld, powerful and portable; tablet computing and cloud computing created security risks and opportunities for exploitation by hackers. 
The severity, volume and complexity of Virus and Malware continued through this period, as hackers and criminals sought to exploit vulnerabilities in companies and websites, especially as most people owned an internet-connected device and an increasing number of people and businesses stored personal and confidential data online; and were purchasing goods, using internet banking and posting personal information online. 

In 2010, the Stuxnet virus targeted industrial processes in Iran, as an increasing wave of international and alleged ‘Government-initiated’ cyber attacks occurred. Cloud-based computing began in 2011; Google+ launched and Microsoft purchased Skype. Unfortunately, the pioneer of Apple, Steve Jobs, died in 2011, one year before it was announced there were 2.4 billion Internet users across the world. 

What current threats are there? 

Based on the latest information, the ransomware trend is steadily increasing across the world. Developed by professionals and operated by cyber gangs (e.g. CryptoWall), thousands of ransomware variants continue to extort victims daily; each of these variants spreads in multiple ways. The most common ransomware infection methods use phishing emails (persuading the user to click on links or download attachments) or use exploit kits to take advantage of vulnerability in anti-virus software or operating systems. One potential threat is the growth in programmers offering services and ‘off-the-shelf’ “Ransomware-as-a-Service” products.

We anticipate that the use of cyber attacks and the use ransomware as a tool for extortion and exploitation against businesses and individuals will significantly rise, especially in a world where computers, servers and networks store valuable data and financial and commercial information. 

If you would like to stay ahead of the curve, contact IT Force for more info on our IT security solutions. You can also look at our recent webinar on the threat landscape at the moment.