The first computer virus ever designed was the Creeper, created in 1971 by Bob Thomas of BBN. Creeper was actually designed as a security test to see if a self-replicating program was possible. It was able to infect other computers on the ARPANET, the precursor of the modern Internet, and display a message that said "IM THE CREEPER. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!". While Creeper was not designed with malicious intent, the Rabbit virus, developed in 1974, was one of the first computer viruses created with malicious intent. It was able to duplicate itself and severely reduce system performance, eventually crashing the computer.