Until I noticed Larry Seltzer's story over on zdnet.com[1], I had forgotten the exact date, but I vividly remember taking my systems offline and having to rely on the telephone (horror!) to get information from some of my colleagues on what was happening.  25 years ago yesterday, the first significant internet worm, the infamous Morris worm, hit.  One of the major results of the worm and the realization that system/network administrators and those of us who were concerned with their security needed better ways to gather and disseminate information about what we now call malware.  The original CERT was created at CMU.  Until SQL Slammer came along (almost 15 years later), this was probably the fastest spreading worm to hit the (much smaller in 1988) internet.  These days, we don't seem to see nearly as many worms as we used to, the bad guys use other, more subtle, techniques to spread their malware, but 25 years ago yesterday, was a pretty significant one for our profession.  If any of our readers were working in the industry at the time, share your thoughts in the comments.

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/the-morris-worm-internet-malware-turns-25-7000022740/

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Jim Clausing, GIAC GSE #26
jclausing --at-- isc [dot] sans (dot) edu