{"id":31957,"date":"2019-12-25T15:09:23","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T20:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?post_type=emagazine&p=31957"},"modified":"2021-03-15T04:37:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T08:37:08","slug":"50-years-internet","status":"publish","type":"emagazine","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/50-years-internet\/31957\/","title":{"rendered":"The birth and evolution of the internet and cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

4.3 billion people used the internet in July 2019<\/a>; that\u2019s over 50 percent of the Earth\u2019s population. Staggering. From viral videos to cloud computing<\/a>, the internet entertains us, connects us and, in many ways, protects us. It\u2019s come a long way in 50 years since October 29, 1969, when the first message was transmitted over an online network. It\u2019s fair to say the internet will play a crucial part in our future. But first, let\u2019s go back to the beginning.<\/p>\n

It started with hello\u2026 kind of<\/h2>\n

The internet is defined as \u2018a network of networks in which any one computer can send information to other computers<\/a>.\u2019 By that definition, its inception was in 1969 when the first network, ARPANET, was developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Originally, ARPA was created in 1958 with the aim of helping American military technology stay ahead of its enemies. Their big project? Build a computer network to send messages across the US.<\/p>\n

And it worked.<\/p>\n

ARPANET originally had five sites: Stanford, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), University of California Santa Barbara, The University of Utah and BBN Technologies. In 1969 it spoke its first words; UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock sent a message from his school\u2019s host computer to another computer at Stanford. He intended to write \u2018login,\u2019 but it crashed and only the letters \u2018L\u2019 and \u2018O\u2019 were sent. Which couldn\u2019t have been more profound, really, as phonetically that spells \u2018hello.\u2019 ARPANET was renamed the internet when it linked 1,000 hosts and university and corporate labs, connecting the world in a way it hadn\u2019t known before.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 1989: Tim Berners-Lee, a fellow at the physics laboratory CERN, Switzerland, connects pages of information on the internet with others, known as \u2018links.\u2019 He calls this HyperText Transfer Protocol, or HTTP \u2013 which was originally developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists and universities around the world<\/a>. He and his team also develop Universal Resource Locators (URLs) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to create websites. He scoops a Turing prize<\/a>. Internet usage skyrockets. Everyone wins.<\/p>\n

That same year, dial up Internet Service Providers (ISPs) popped up alongside modems, so everyone could access the internet (providing they had a phone line). Think America Online (AOL) and CompuServe. The world was now connected in what we retrospectively refer to as Web 1.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How the internet revolutionized business<\/h2>\n

Come 1993, Marc Andreessen created the first popular web browser, Mosaic, which allowed users to see pages as images and text, as opposed to just text. Amazon, Craigslist and eBay were amongst the first to join the revolution, evolving from stores and publications to dotcom entities, using the internet to widen their customer base.<\/p>\n

The internet was in place, but there was little way to help users make sense of it. And so came search engines \u2013 a crucial part of the puzzle, especially for businesses. They were essential to help people navigate the internet but also to give brands more presence. In the first instance, you had Alta Vista and Yahoo!, then in 1998 Google burst onto the scene and began to build its empire. In a similar vein to Tim Berners-Lee\u2019s HTTP tech, the reason Google was so successful at the time (and even now), was that it came from academia and pragmatic thinking to expand knowledge into the world rather than purely commercial demands. And both HTTP technology and search engines used a free-at-the-point-of-use model, without the need for a subscription to use it, or the cost of patent licensing to build on it.<\/p>\n

The benefits of the internet for business<\/h2>\n

\"50
\nBusinesses have been benefitting from the internet since search engines in the \u201990s. Chiefly with the birth of ecommerce \u2013 the process of purchasing goods and services over the internet using secure connections and electronic payment services. With an online presence \u2013 notably websites and social media profiles \u2013 brands were now able to reach new audiences quickly. Fast forward 50 years and there\u2019s no sign of that slowing down. Globally, ecommerce is worth $21 trillion<\/a>, and with 2.14 billion online shoppers expected in 2021<\/a>, the profits are only going to rise.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just about reaching new audiences, it\u2019s also about helping brands understand their customers. With the rise of email marketing, social media and cookie capture forms, businesses know their customers better than ever before. This means they\u2019re able to tailor shopper experiences and build stronger connections.<\/p>\n

On the operational side, technology like cloud<\/a> computing \u2013 storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of through a computer\u2019s hard drive \u2013 can help businesses save money, scale IT resources and enable their employees to work flexibly (another trend born out of the internet<\/a>) to name a few.<\/p>\n

Essentially, the progress of the internet has enabled traditional industries to grow, businesses to streamline their operations and provided a platform for new products and services. Smart homes, video streaming services and IoT connected devices are all possible with the internet. But that\u2019s not to say there haven\u2019t been challenges to security along the way.<\/p>\n

The birth of cybersecurity<\/h2>\n

Internet threats and opportunities have grown exponentially, but quietly in the background, the cyber-tech industry has flourished. And it all started with a research project. Engineer Bob Thomas realized it was possible for a computer program to move across a network, so created a self-replicating program called the Creeper<\/a>, which travelled between the ARPANET systems printing out the message, \u201cI\u2019m the creeper catch me if you can.\u201d For clarification, the Creeper wasn\u2019t a malicious virus, it was a proof-of-concept used to demonstrate a moveable application.<\/p>\n

In response, Engineer Ray Tomlinson created Reaper<\/a>, a program that would catch the Creeper and then delete it. Thus the first anti-virus software was born\u2026 in a way. Since then, viruses and anti-viruses have evolved at a rate of knots. One of the first malicious worms was developed by graduate student Robert Morris \u2013 creator of the Morris Worm<\/a>. Widely regarded as the first major attack on the internet \u2013 the Morris Worm disabled 10 percent of the internet\u2019s 60,000 host computers way back in 1988. At the time, total devastation. But if it did anything, it taught the world one thing: with greater connectivity come greater threats.<\/p>\n

Since then, mammoth cyberattacks<\/a>, including the historic Mafiaboy attack in 2000<\/a>, have grown in frequency and impact. As beneficial as the internet\u2019s been to businesses and people around the globe, the number of cyberattacks continues to rise, and become more devastating. The average cost of a data breach<\/a> for small medium businesses (SMBs) stands at $108,000, while at enterprise-level that figure soars to $1.4m.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for the internet?<\/h2>\n

Internet traffic \u2013 both bandwidth used and total internet users \u2013 is likely to increase exponentially<\/a>. Whereas traffic was first measured in terabytes (1,024Gb) and then petabytes (1,000,000Gb), it\u2019s now measured in exabytes<\/a> (one billions Gbs). According to Cisco\u2019s Visual Networking Index<\/a>, annual web traffic will triple from 122 exabytes in 2017 to 396 exabytes by 2022. That\u2019s 396,000,000,000 Gb, or enough bandwidth to download 160 billion episodes of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not only will traffic rise, the amount of connected devices, known globally as the internet of things (IoT) will grow in popularity too. From food-buying to fitbits, the world is set to become more connected than ever before. In fact, a recent report by Siemens<\/a> estimates that by 2022 there will be 29 billion connected devices, of which around 18 billion will be related to IoT. So, all in all, there\u2019s no slowing down.<\/p>\n

From digital innovation to data capture, the benefits of the internet for business is clear, wherever you are in the globe. But with opportunity comes threat. If you\u2019re a business using the internet for whatever purpose, you\u2019re at risk a cyberattack. The answer? Invest in ways to protect your data \u2013 from anti-virus and other perimeter security<\/a> to cyber-skills training<\/a> \u2013 and your future.<\/p>\n

Well, you\u2019ve heard my predictions, now it\u2019s time for yours. Where do you think the internet will be in 2050?<\/p>\n

This article represents the opinion of the author.<\/em><\/p>\n

Article published in 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

50 years ago, the first message was transmitted that gave birth to the phenomena that is the internet. But how\u2019s it evolving and what does that mean for cybersecurity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2520,"featured_media":31960,"template":"","coauthors":[3424],"class_list":{"0":"post-31957","1":"emagazine","2":"type-emagazine","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"emagazine-category-cybersecurity","7":"emagazine-category-tech-for-good","8":"emagazine-tag-history","9":"emagazine-tag-internet"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/50-years-internet\/31957\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/50-years-internet\/20154\/"}],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/emagazine\/31957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/emagazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/emagazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=31957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}