The History And Future Of Phishing
  • Download Apps
25k+
close Image

The History and Future of Phishing

by Brian Wallace — 5 years ago in Security 2 min. read
3450

Having a spam email show up in your inbox nowadays is most of the time a harmless annoyance and we don’t really pay attention to them nearly as much as we used to. Spam has always been unpopular, but at one point it made the transition to phishing and has been a major problem ever since.

The internet started as MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System, which stored shared files on a central disk and users logged in from remote terminals to access these files in 1965. In 1971, the prototype internet called ARPANET got the @ symbol, letting users send messages to specific users and help differentiate computers, and thus email was born. In 1976, Queen Elizebeth II became the very first head of state to send an email.



It would take another year for the first standard email to be sent, that is an email with a field for “To” and “From” and also the ability to forward messages but only a year after that for the very first mass email was sent. It was sent to 397 users in 1978, and was so unpopular that no one would try again for over a decade. In 1988, “spamming” was a prank played by player of multi-user dungeons (MUD) games. MUDers would flood their rival’s accounts with junk mail, preventing them from playing and crashing their systems. The term “spam” referring to junk emails was first said by Richard Depew, referencing a Monty Python skit of the same name. The second major attempt at mass marketing spam was in 1994 when 2 immagration lawyers sent a mass message advertising their services. But because email was not designed to be secure, spamming went from annoyance to major security threat when it turned to phishing.

In the 1990’s the Warez Community used randomly generated credit card numbers to open AOL accounts. Using hacked accounts they could send more phishing messages to the victim’s contacts. AOL quickly introduced new security measures that stopped the use of generated credit card numbers, but Warez was a step ahead. They pretended to be AOL admins requesting logins from users that they targeted, and the spamming game grew from there with more and more viruses doing more damage and taking more data and money to more computers.

Find out how to protect your email from phishing attacks and how to recognize phishing attacks before they can do any damage here.

Email Phishing

Brian Wallace

Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of Now Sourcing, an industry leading infographic design agency based in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies that range from startups to Fortune 500s. Brian also runs #LinkedInLocal events nationwide, and hosts the Next Action Podcast. Brian has been named a Google Small Business Advisor for 2016-present and joined the SXSW Advisory Board in 2019.

Top 10 News

view all
Follow us on

Categories

Related Posts

img

Security

TheOneSpy Phone Tracker: 10 Features for Effective Employee ...
By: Neeraj Gupta, Sat November 9, 2024

Employee monitoring is not a novel abstraction, as it is already operated by..

img

Security

The Critical Role of Cybersecurity in Software Development
By: Neeraj Gupta, Sat July 20, 2024

Today’s society views software development as an important industry with..

img

Security

Smart Home Security Features For Busy Families: Balancing Co...
By: David Todva, Thu July 11, 2024

The modern dynamic pace of life is creating new challenges for families. People..

img

Security

Parents Should Know: Is Snapchat Safe For Teens?
By: Ankita Sharma, Wed July 3, 2024

Snapchat is the third most plausible platform for teenagers, with only TikTok..

img

Security

AI Avatars: Security and Privacy Risks To Consider
By: Ankita Sharma, Thu June 6, 2024

How do you observe privacy in the age of Artificial Intelligence? I mean does..

img

Security

What Do You Need To Know About Flashcards In Cybersecurity S...
By: Alan Jackson, Thu April 18, 2024

Amid today’s complex web of security threats and the continuous need for..

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Copyright © 2018 – The Next Tech. All Rights Reserved.