In this Cybersecurity Case Study, we explore the Morris Worm (1988), one of the most important events in the history of cybersecurity and the first major Internet worm attack.
Created by Cornell University student Robert Tappan Morris, the Morris Worm was originally designed as an experiment to measure the size of the Internet. However, a design flaw caused the worm to spread uncontrollably, infecting approximately 6,000 computers and disrupting nearly 10% of the Internet at the time.













