Ever wondered what is the cybersecurity history? The origin of cybersecurity can be traced back to the 1940s. Find out more in this article. 

The 1940s 

John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert built the world’s first digital computer in 1943. This was the time before the crime as carrying out cyberattacks was tricky. Moreover, only a few people had access to giant electronic machines. 

Furthermore, these computers weren’t networked. Thus, only small numbers of people knew how to operate them so the threat was almost non-exisitent. 

However, computer pioneer John Von Neumann formulated and released an underlying theory in 1949. Neumann speculated that computer programs could reproduce, implying that computer viruses possibly exist. 

The 1950s

This was the time when ‘phone phreaking’ emerged. It was very much like hacking – phreaks would hijack the protocols enabling telecom engineers to make free calls and avoid long-distance tolls. 

This became a huge problem for phone companies as there was no way to stop the phreaks. Fortunately, phone phreaking eventually died out in the 1980s. 

The 1960s

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s student newspaper was the first to publish a reference to malicious hacking. 

In this era, most computers were locked away in secure temperature-controlled rooms. Only a few people still had access to these machines. This was the only defense these computers had at that time. 

That changed in 1967 when IBM invited school kids to try out their new computer. The students’ curiosity made them probe deeper. As result, they learned the system’s language and gained access to other parts of the system. 

IBM thanked these students for “their compulsion to bomb the system.” This resulted in the development of defensive measures for the computer. Furthermore, this paved the way for what we know now as “ethical hacking.”

The 1970s 

This era was the climax of cybersecurity history. A researcher named Bob Thomas created a computer program that had the ability to move ARPANET’s network (ARPANET means The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.), leaving a small trail wherever it went. 

Bob Thomas named the computer program ‘Creeper’. Creeper leaves a breadcrumb trail wherever it went. It read: ‘I’m the creeper, catch me if you can’.

Then, the inventor of email Ray Tomlinson wrote the program ‘Reaper’. Tomlinson’s program eliminated ‘Creeper’. Besides being the very first example of antivirus software, Reaper was also the first program that can self-replicate or what we know today as the “computer worm”. 

Furthermore, 1972-1974 witnessed a marked increase in discussions around computer security, mainly by academics in papers. Governments started to realize that security was essential as the reliance on computers grew. 

1987 – the birth of cybersecurity 

Commercial antiviruses began appearing in the market in 1987. However, it is not clear who innovated the first antivirus product. 

By 1988, there are many antivirus companies around the world. One of them is Avast, founded by Eduard Kučera and Pavel Baudiš in Prague, Czech Republic. Avast now has 1,700 employees worldwide. 

The first electronic forum devoted to antivirus security was in 1988. Additionally, the 1980s was also the birth of the antivirus press.