The Birth of Malware: The Creeper and Its Legacy

Hey listeners—we’ve got something different for you to try. If you enjoyed our Caturday episode and want more stories about security, we think you’ll like Season 9 of Command Line Heroes. It’s Red Hat’s tech history show, and this new season is all about malware. Here’s the first episode:

Computer viruses and worms haunt the internet. They worm their way into a system, replicate, and spread again. It’s a simple process—with devastating consequences. But there’s a whole industry of people that rose up to fight back. 

Craig Schmugar recalls how he and his team responded to MyDoom, one of the fastest-spreading worms ever. Dr. Nur Zincir-Heywood reveals the inner workings of viruses and worms, and how they draw their names from the world of biology. And security expert Mikko Hypponen shares advice on avoiding malware. But he also warns that we’re in an arms race against malware developers.