The Creeper was the first-ever computer virus that was designed as an experiment by Bob Thomas, a coder in BBN Technologies Research and Development in 1971. He wanted to explore the probabilities of self-replicating programs and that was the birth of the first computer virus. Although he created the program as an experiment, the virus accidentally spread to other computers outside the research lab when his computer was connected to ARPANET, the old form of the modern internet.