History of Hacking and Cybersecurity

Amidst the chaos in hospitals at the height pandemic, hackers from various organizations were able to install ransomware in hospitals, resulting in even more disaster, slower treatment for patients, and tens millions of dollars lost. While the importance of cybersecurity has been highlighted in the events of the crisis, the concept of computer viruses has been around since the genesis of digital computers.

PAST

In the late 1940’s, a mathematician named John Neumann had published a paper on Theory of Self-Replicating Automata, a concept hypothesizing that there could be a mechanical virus that could take over systems by replicating itself many times, thus portending the creation of computer viruses.

While the first computer virus is regarded to be the Creeper virus, it wasn’t the first malicious virus. The first malicious virus, the Rabbit virus, was released in 1974 and had the capability to duplicate itself multiple times. The name Rabbit coming from the speed with which it can crash a computer. Nowadays it is still used as a type of DOS (denial of service attack) to overload a computer that is also known as a fork bomb.

The “loveletter” virus was and is still one of the most damaging viruses due to the lack of security and the new age of email in May of 2005. The virus comes in the form of an email with the subject “ILOVEYOU”. When opened, it would use an exploit to find all passwords and usernames on Windows and send to an email while also going through a victims entire Microsoft Outlook contacts and emailing the virus to each one. It cost the world $7.8 billion and to this day is one of the most damaging viruses. This was one of the first instances of social engineering, a type of attack that deceives the victim.

PRESENT

The internet being at its peak also means that cybercrime and cybersecurity is also at its peak. In 2021, $6 trillion were lost via cyberattacks. Cybercrime has now moved on from a few passionate computer science students with a malicious hobby to criminal organizations embezzling money through ransom.

There are many types of viruses; however, they can be split into two groups – social engineering and “zero day”. “Zero day” viruses are much rarer than viruses that rely on social engineering, as a flaw in the software must be found to exploit. “Zero day” vulnerabilities are worth up to a million dollars and is one of the most valuable resources a hacker could have. Large and powerful organizations are usually the targets of “zero day” attacks as they yield the most reward when hacked. For example, the Sony Pictures hack of 2014 had exploited a vulnerability in the email network as it managed to gain credentials for the accounts of high-ranking executives at Sony and cause major damage. The hack also threatened a terrorist attack in cinemas if Sony didn’t withdraw the movie “The Interview” that portrayed North Korea’s leader Kim Jung Un in a satirical manner. On the other hand, social engineering attacks make up the majority of cyberattacks such as “phishing” and “vishing”. Social engineering attacks either attack specific individuals or target a large group of people and is done on a mass scale. One of the more infamous cases of social engineering is the “Nigerian prince scam.”

FUTURE

Although the technological scene continues to change unpredictably, it is almost certain that the value of the data that is compromised is only going to increase. Everyday cyberattacks such as phishing and vishing will still be prevalent as it is very profitable; however, cyberattacks will also concentrate on extracting data from companies and businesses. The recent growth of machine learning will also be a key feature in viruses. There are viruses that are able of passing Captcha tests via machine learning with 100% accuracy.