When Did Cybersecurity Start Becoming Important?

Cybersecurity became important in the 1970s when researcher Bob Thomas developed a computer program called Creeper that could navigate the ARPANET’s network, leaving a breadcrumb trail behind it. 

Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of email, created Reaper — a program that tracked down and deleted Creeper. Reaper was the world’s first antivirus software and self-replicating program, making it the world’s first computer worm ever.

History of Cybersecurity

Due to its complexity, both political and technological, cybersecurity is also one of the world’s major challenges in the modern era. Since we now know that it started in 1970, let’s talk about the succeeding years up to the present day.

The 1980s

Andreas Lüning and Kai Figge released their first antivirus product for the Atari ST in 1987, the same year that Ultimate Virus Killer was released. In the same year, three Czechoslovakians created the first version of the NOD antivirus, and John McAfee founded McAfee and released VirusScan in the United States.

The 1990s

With the public availability of the internet, an increasing number of people began posting their personal information online, and organized crime groups recognized this as a source of revenue and began stealing data from individuals and governments. By the mid-1990s, network security threats had grown exponentially, necessitating the mass production of firewalls and antivirus programs to protect the public.

The 2000s

In the early 2000s, crime organizations began heavily funding professional cyberattacks, and governments began cracking down on the criminality of hacking, imposing significantly harsher sentences on those found guilty. As the internet grew, so did information security, but unfortunately, so did viruses.

In 2021

The cybersecurity industry is continuing to expand extremely fast. As per Statista, the global cybersecurity market is expected to reach $345.4 billion by the year 2026. Ransomware is one of the most prevalent threats to an organization’s data security, and its prevalence is expected to grow.

Cybersecurity is becoming more and more important as our reliance on computer systems, the Internet, and wireless network standards increases. You may be wondering how to protect your privacy more in this modern-day; check out Security Forward’s article covering ways to protect yourself on online dating apps.