November 1988
Morris Worm (1988)
A Cornell graduate student released a self-replicating program meant to gauge internet size. A flaw in its error handling made it copy itself out of control, infecting about 6,000 machines — roughly 10% of the internet — and causing millions of dollars in damage.
Then
Robert Morris became the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which Congress had passed two years earlier.
Now
Established legal and technical frameworks for treating software that acts beyond its operator's intent as a security event.
Why this matters now
Like OpenAI's agents, the worm did something its creator never intended, and the damage came from autonomous propagation rather than deliberate malice.