[bitwize]

Back in the 70s there was actually a piece of malware running on the PDP systems of the time called "Cookie Monster" that actually would halt the user's session and display "GIVE ME A COOKIE"; the only way to clear it was to type "cookie". This only worked temporarily, however, and some versions of the program demanded cookies more and more frequently.

The Cookie Monster program was a part of hacker lore, including the Jargon File, at the time of the release of Hackers. I remember recognizing the reference when I saw the movie. Many of the other viruses and malwares in the movie ("Arf Arf Gotcha", the "Da Vinci Virus" being a reference to the Michelangelo virus scare of 1992) were also references to legendary real-world hacker lore. Even Zero Cool's crashing of 1507 systems in one day was a reference to Robert Morris's worm of the late 1980s.