Cybersecurity: Shielding systems, fighting off hackers for nearly four decades

June breach of Spartanburg County systems shows need for greater protection

On Nov. 3, 1988, long before most of the world would hear of dot-com and cyberspace, Eugene Spafford, an assistant professor of computer science at Purdue University, awoke to a peculiar problem: he could not log into his school computer from home. At first, he thought his machine just needed rebooting. “But later I started looking at system logs on that machine, and some others,” said Spafford, now a distinguished professor of computer science entering his 40th year at Purdue. “And I found evidence that [a computer worm] had been present.” The worm turned out to be the first stand-alone computer malware — created by Robert Tappan Morris, a Cornell University graduate student, who would soon become the first person indicted under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.