What was the name of the first internet worm to cause widespread damage?

“What was the name of the first internet worm to cause widespread damage?” — It was the Morris worm, also called the Internet worm. Released on November 2, 1988, it became the first computer worm to attract major public attention and caused widespread disruption across early internet-connected systems.

The worm was written by Robert Tappan Morris, then a Cornell graduate student, and launched from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology network. It spread through vulnerabilities and weaknesses in Unix systems, including flaws involving sendmail and the finger service, as well as easily guessed passwords. Its code was designed to avoid reinfecting machines that were already compromised.

A programming decision made that safeguard unreliable: the worm copied itself onto some systems even when they reported an existing infection. Multiple copies consumed resources and slowed or crashed affected computers. Although Morris said he did not intend to create a destructive attack, the result was effectively a large denial-of-service incident.

The episode helped establish computer-worm security as a serious field. It contributed to the creation of CERT/CC at Carnegie Mellon University, and Morris later became the first person convicted under the United States Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.