History of Cybercrime: What We’ve Learned from the Past

While Charles Babbage created the first mechanical computer in 1822, known as The Difference Engine, it’s not what most people mean by computers today. 

This look at cybercrime will consider the following:

• the evolution of computing;
• the corresponding rise of cybercrime;
• what we’ve learned from historical cyberattacks, and
• practical steps to enhance internet safety.

The First Computers

The first programmable, functional modern computer is considered to be Konrad Zuse’s Z1, constructed in his parents’ living room between 1936 and 1938. At around the same time, Alan Turing was theorizing on computing, developing fundamentals used today in everything from gaming consoles to sophisticated AI and machine learning systems. 

Electric programmable computers helped British codebreakers during World War II, digital computers appeared using vacuum tubes, the ENIAC machine was created, weighing around 50 tons, and the EDSAC machine became the first to run a game. Also, significant innovations were IBM’s 701 commercial scientific computer, and MIT’s Whirlwind machine from 1955, which used magnetic core RAM and featured real-time graphics.

The first desktop computer, however, appeared in 1964. And Hewlett-Packard made the first mass-market desktop machine, hitting the streets in 1968.

A Brief History of Cybercrime

• It wasn’t long before the first desktop computer that the world saw its first cyberattack. The first cyberattack in modern history occurred in 1962 against MIT’s computer networks. Computer Scientist Allen Scherr’s attack resulted in the theft of passwords from the MIT database.

• 1971 saw the first computer virus. Researcher Bob Thomas created this self-replicating program called the Creeper Virus for research purposes, foreshadowing today’s array of viruses and other malware criminals use to disable, disrupt, and dominate businesses and individuals worldwide.

• The “Morris Worm,” originated by student Robert Morris, infected educational institutions across the internet in the 90s, about a year before the World Wide Web was released to the general public, infecting computers at UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Princeton, and NASA.

• 1995 was a bumper year for cybercrime. The first known hacker to attempt a bank robbery, Vladimir Levin, stole over 10 million dollars from Citibank via numerous global transactions. 

• And this was also the year that one of the world’s most famous hackers — Kevin Mitnick — pioneered social engineering to acquire access codes for large networks, including Nokia and Motorola. 

• The Melissa Virus put computer viruses on the cybercrime map in 1999, infecting and corrupting the Microsoft documents of users worldwide, causing about $80 million in damages.

• One of the most daring cyberattacks of the 2000s was perpetrated by 15-year-old Michael Calce. Going by the name of Mafioboy, he disrupted large swathes of the internet via a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, overloading servers with requests and bringing sites including Amazon, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and CNN to their knees.

• 2010 saw the arrival of big data and an explosion in the frequency and types of cyberattacks, including those perpetrated or supported by nation states. This year saw the Stuxnet worm sabotage Iran’s nuclear plants, the Zeus Trojan virus facilitated the theft of over $70 million from US banks, and the Chinese military attack named Operation Aurora affected more than 20 leading tech companies. 

• Edward Snowden blew the whistle on cyber espionage in 2013, which might be the highest-profile data leak ever.

• In 2015, the Pentagon had to shut down its email system after the Defense Department was compromised by a spear-phishing attack.

• WannaCry ransomware infected over 200,000 computers across 150 countries in 2017, including the systems of the UK’s NHS hospitals. Soon after, a new variant called NotPetya attacked and compromised numerous organizations, including pharmaceutical firm Merck and shipping company Maersk.

• In 2018, the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency coincided with a massive cyberattack focused on cryptocurrency mining, known as cryptojacking. Cybercriminals infected millions of devices to steal their processing power for over a year.

• The early 2020s have seen numerous data breaches compromising personal information that cybercriminals can sell and use to commit fraud and extortion. Russian cyberattacks increased in prevalence, including their use of a compromised SolarWinds program to breach 18,000 networks and a suspected Russian breach of the Colonial Pipeline system.

• In 2022, Costa Rica was reduced to a state of emergency when a ransomware attack compromised its social security agency. 

Lessons Learned from the History of Cybercrime

What we’ve learned from this brief history of cybercrime is that whenever computer and internet technology advance, cybercriminals have been there to exploit it. 

In the early days of computing and the internet, cybersecurity wasn’t a concept most people had considered. It did not exist as a term, let alone a field. Applications were relatively easy to exploit. Victims were typically unprepared. 

However, high-profile cyberattacks and data leaks over the years got the public’s attention. Most organizations are now on board with protecting their systems, particularly those considered critical infrastructure, subject to rigorous regulations to ensure compliance with minimum cybersecurity standards.

Still, keeping up with cybercriminals is an ongoing challenge, especially with increasing cyberattacks from or supported by nation states, perpetuating corporate, technological, and military attacks and espionage.

Advances in processing power, bandwidth (5g), connected devices, and machine learning, give cybercriminals more tools and resources to attack systems. But cybersecurity professionals also leverage cutting-edge technology to protect networks and information, and so can you. 

Things to Do

Whatever the threat landscape, cybersecurity best practices help keep people and organizations safe online. These key activities include the following:

• Using multi-factor authentication — according to Microsoft, this prevents 99.9% of account compromises.
• Maintaining strong passwords — a strong password is long (at least eight characters), contains a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols, includes some capitalization, and avoids dictionary words.
• Managing passwords — it’s inadvisable to use the same password twice for any account linked to financial information.
• Learning about phishing — phishing is the largest cyberattack vector, with cybercriminals tricking users into revealing personal information or downloading malware. The attacks are perpetrated by email, social media, and phone calls. Learning to identify phishing can help maintain internet safety. Make the most of online resources, especially if you’reusing your email to fax, to reduce spam and phishing attempts. UsePhoneHistory to confirm the identity of unknown callers.
• Installing antimalware — software developers counteract the latest threats and update antimalware databases frequently to keep users safe.
• Updating software — most software updates are security-based. Always update software for all apps and the operating system to ensure vulnerabilities are patched. 

Once you’ve looked at the evolution of cybercrime, your awareness of cyberthreats will be greater. That in itself will help you be safer from cybercrime. Implement the suggested action items, too, to improve internet safety for your professional and personal networks.