From the early noughties to today , there has been a steady increase in cybercrime and the threat it poses to economic stability . Ransomware and Malware are used by organised criminals to infiltrate and extort data and funds from even the best fortified entities .

The cybersecurity industry globally is now worth an estimated US $ 140bn . No business is beyond attack , as the SolarWinds breach of 2021 proves , along with thousands of other recent incidents . Cyber infiltration is now considered a form of warfare .

ILOVEYOU

Y BEGAN FIVE DECADES AGO COMPONENT OF ALL ONLINE STITUTIONS AT THE FOREFRONT RTIFICATION

WORMS ARE CREATED

According to some reports , Robert T . Morris – a student studying at Cornell University – wanted to determine the size of the internet as a whole .

To do it , he built the first worm , which was to move through the network and infect UNIX systems . But an error in the design of the program caused it to infect each machine , one after the other . This led to networks that were clogged with information , leading to massive system crashes .

By the 90s , the internet had become a global concern and the cybersecurity industry grew with it . The decade saw the creation of Polymorphic virus risks and the first antivirus program . The goal was to increase ways to protect against risks .

As one hacker group developed after another , companies faced a lot of challenges to improve security to minimise hacking . The 90s also saw malicious viruses launched on a mass scale , as ILOVEYOU and Melissa infected millions of computers by targeting Microsoft Outlook .

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