Network Threats

By cbtlewis

  • 'Theory of Self-Reprducing Automata' published.

    Paper published by John von Nuemann believed to be foundation of study of viruses

  • The Creeper - first virus written

    Bob Thomas, created the first virus called the Creeper. The Creeper was self-contained.

  • The Reaper - first antivirus developed

    Ray Tomlinson, colleague to Bob Thomas (creator of the first virus, The Creeper) developed the first antivirus ,the Reaper to eradicate the Creeper. Like the Creeper, the Reaper was self-contained.
  • Period: to

    Emergence of black hat hackers

    During the 1980s and 1990s, the term hackers became associated for criminal activity. The origin of 'black hat hacker' was attributed to Richard Stallman.

  • Whte Hat Hacking in The New York Times

    NYT described white hat activities as part of a "mischievous but perversely positive 'hacker' tradition".

  • Elk Cloner - first virus spread 'in the wild'

    First virus spread in the wild. Targeted Apple II computers.

  • Brain - First PC Virus

    First PC virus in the wild, Brain, was discovered in 1986.

  • First commercial use antivirus

    McAfee, G Data, and ESET all create first antivirus software in 1987.

  • The AIDS Trogan - The first ransomware

    Created by Joseph Popp, AIDS trojan was the first ransomware. Once installed, it would count each time you booted up your computer, and after 90 times, it would hide all of your files and demand a letter with $189 to "renew your license".

  • Firewall was born

    Packet filtering firewalls were born.

  • Firewall changes for good.

    An Isreali based security company released the world's first stateful inspections based firewall

  • Mainstream growth for firewalls

    Stateful inspection firewalls became much more mainstream and supported VPN and other functions.

  • 'Ethical hacking' was first used by IBM Vice President, John Patrick.

    Although the concept has been around longer, the phrase 'ethical hacking' was first used in 1995 by John Patrick, IBM Vice President at the time.

  • Melissa - The first social engineering attack

    The first email based virus, Melissa, was the first to use social engineering.
  • Period: to

    Intrusion Detection preferred over Intrusion Prevention

  • UTM Introduction

    The unified threat management (UTM) theory was introduced. This combined traditional firewalls, intrusion detection, antivirus, email filtering, and other functions into a firewall.

  • GPCoder and Archievus - Ransomware

    The internet offers new opportunities to ransomware.

  • The Adoption of Intrustion Prevention Systems

  • Period: to

    Adoption of Faster Combined IDS/IPS

  • Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) Introduction

    NGFW focused on performance degradation when enabling multiple functions and also allowed for better management of users.

  • Vundo - Ransomware

    First example of attackers file encryption and attackers demanding money for decryption.

  • Trojan Winlock

    First example of locker ransomware.
  • Period: to

    Next Generation IPS

  • Emergence of CryptoLocker

    Stronger Encryption: The emergence of CryptoLocker.

  • Wannacry and Petya

    First global campaigns of ransomware.

  • Server-defined Firewall Introduced

    First purpose-built internal firewall. Stateful layer 7 firewall protection to prevent lateral movement and other attack vectors specific to internal network of on-premise, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.