"Morris Worm"

Definition: Morris Worm: Unleashed on the morning of Thursday, November 3, 1988, the Morris Worm essentially crashed the Internet. In true worm fashion, it exploited bugs in several UNIX programs (sendmail, finger) to break into machines. Once in a machine, it would then look for other machines and launch attacks against them. Due to a programming mistake, the Morris Worm would not recognize when it had already broken into a machine. As the worm multiplied, machines would get broken into over and over, eventually overloading the machine and taking it offline. The worm is named after its creator, Robert Tapam Morris. From Hacking-Lexicon

* Linux/Unix/Computing Glossary