Reference no: EM133892330
Question
An incident with released escapements or defects :
Morris Worm
Cost: $100 million
In December 1988, a graduate student at Cornell University Robert Tappan Morris accidentally created a malware program. It started as a harmless experiment but the program went out of control due to a mistake in a code. It started spreading rapidly, blowing out thousands of computers. Morris was accused of cybercrime and fined for $10,000, although around $100 million were spent for compensating the damage he caused.
Throughout the module Resources section, you explored several case studies of what happens when coding goes wrong and why it is important to debug and test your code. You explored examples of released escapements and defects. For this discussion, you will research an incident with released escapements or defects and share it with your peers. A great place to begin your research is within our own library system at the Shapiro Library homepage. Try to share a new example and not one already covered in the module Resources section.
This Morris worm gave a big impact not only in the America but also in the whole world. No other malware instance in history has had the same impact as the Morris Worm. It infected 6,000 out of 60,000 internet-connected PCs, with many of them being infected for nearly 72 hours. Professor Eugene H. Spafford of Purrdue University reported in a paper at the time that unusual files were left in the directories of some machines, and that systems began to slow down as they got increasingly laden with active processes.
Because of the worm's architecture, which sees it replicate itself via a computer network and execute harmful behaviors like consuming up a machine's resources, some PCs have shut down as a result of being repeatedly infected.
The Morris Worm, which was unleashed at 6 p.m. EST that night, effectively brought the internet to a halt, causing the most damage ever witnessed by malware to that point. As the Morris Worm exploited their weaknesses, tens of thousands of machines were infected, and systems were brought to a halt.
The Morris Worm exposed the world to previously unknown flaws, sowing the seeds of public distrust that have grown gradually for decades and are now flourishing.