A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. Often, it uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, even if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.
Read more about Computer Worm: Payloads, Worms With Good Intent, Protecting Against Dangerous Computer Worms, Mitigation Techniques, History
Famous quotes containing the words computer and/or worm:
“The analogy between the mind and a computer fails for many reasons. The brain is constructed by principles that assure diversity and degeneracy. Unlike a computer, it has no replicative memory. It is historical and value driven. It forms categories by internal criteria and by constraints acting at many scales, not by means of a syntactically constructed program. The world with which the brain interacts is not unequivocally made up of classical categories.”
—Gerald M. Edelman (b. 1928)
“You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now man is still more ape than any ape.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)