Security Kitchen. A SUSE Podcast
Jun 5, 2026 · 1 hr 22 min · 7 segments
Ready to dig into today's meal? Please take a seat in our SUSE Security Kitchen and prepare to taste test parts of the history, some of the threats and many of the elements that make up our cyber…
Let's start our historical malware hall of fame journey talking a little bit more about the Creeper malware.
To do that, we have to go all the way back to 1971, when malware, worms, and computer viruses were terms not yet well known by people.
So much so that the Creeper wasn't even originally written with the goal of being a worm, which is what it is considered nowadays, but rather of being a replicating program that would test the development possibility of a resource sharing capability for computers.
This original version was created by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies, and it, quote, infected, unquote, the ARPANET rather than the internet because the internet did not yet exist.
That's how far back we went.
The ARPANET was a US military computer network which we can think of as the appetizer version of a network that would later become our robust main course internet.
The Creeper, in its original iteration, would simply move from target to target rather than actually replicate itself.
Catch me if you can." And that was basically it.
Pretty harmless, although this experimental code was eventually, quote, upgraded, unquote, by Ray Tomlinson to actually start replicating rather than just moving from machine to machine.
This version of the malware is considered the first computer worm, even if its only goal was to print a message to the screen.
No data theft or removal happening.
The people responsible for the infected machines were aware of the experiment happening, so it didn't really cause any nuisance for them.
It is actually considered by many a nematode malware, one that infects systems to remove other malware.
A vigilante malware, in a sense.
A lighthearted story of a friendly malware that just wanted to taste test the ARPANET in order to open doors for the development of a more complex application.
Ah, if only things had remained that way, right? Unfortunately, in 1989, the AIDS Trojan was roaming the machines of the world, leading to what nowadays is known as the first ever ransomware attack.
This malware infected systems via a floppy disk rather than through the network.
Remember those? Oof.
I once again feel old.
Let's start our historical malware hall of fame journey talking a little bit more about the Creeper malware.
To do that, we have to go all the way back to 1971, when malware, worms, and computer viruses were terms not yet well known by people.
So much so that the Creeper wasn't even originally written with the goal of being a worm, which is what it is considered nowadays, but rather of being a replicating program that would test the development possibility of a resource sharing capability for computers.
This original version was created by Bob Thomas at BBN Technologies, and it, quote, infected, unquote, the ARPANET rather than the internet because the internet did not yet exist.
That's how far back we went.
The ARPANET was a US military computer network which we can think of as the appetizer version of a network that would later become our robust main course internet.
The Creeper, in its original iteration, would simply move from target to target rather than actually replicate itself.
Catch me if you can." And that was basically it.
Pretty harmless, although this experimental code was eventually, quote, upgraded, unquote, by Ray Tomlinson to actually start replicating rather than just moving from machine to machine.
This version of the malware is considered the first computer worm, even if its only goal was to print a message to the screen.
No data theft or removal happening.
The people responsible for the infected machines were aware of the experiment happening, so it didn't really cause any nuisance for them.
It is actually considered by many a nematode malware, one that infects systems to remove other malware.
A vigilante malware, in a sense.
A lighthearted story of a friendly malware that just wanted to taste test the ARPANET in order to open doors for the development of a more complex application.
Ah, if only things had remained that way, right? Unfortunately, in 1989, the AIDS Trojan was roaming the machines of the world, leading to what nowadays is known as the first ever ransomware attack.
This malware infected systems via a floppy disk rather than through the network.
Remember those? Oof.
I once again feel old.
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