what's the difference between an internet worm and a virus?

Answer 1

A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a computer virus. A virus attaches itself to, and becomes part of, another executable program; however, a worm is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself. They are often designed to exploit the file transmission capabilities found on many computers

A Computer Virus is a computer program which distributes copies of itself, even without permission or knowledge of the user. A computer virus is often simply called a virus if it is clear from the context that it does not refer to a biological virus. The term is commonly used to refer to a range of malware, but a true virus does not need to be harmful. To distribute itself, a virus needs to be executed or interpreted. Viruses often hide themselves inside other programs to be executed.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Worm is quite a tough nut to detect. They may come in emails, i mean, in emails like when you open that email, you're computer will be infected. Even your antivirus software wont detect it. Worms are known to sneak into files. As you delete a known file that has a worm, somehow or another, it will 'glide' to the next file. That's why it's so hard to detect and isolate it. The best way to remove it, is to reboot your whole system.

For a virus, it usually comes in the form of attached materials and websites. This virus, mentioned by one of the guys who answered you, will inject codes into your computer. These codes will hence destroy whatever inside it's 'memory', meaning whatever the hacker programmed it to do.

In a way, you can say the the worm is a program that 'destroy everything on sight' and a virus is a program that is used for 'search and destroy'.

Answer 4

A Worm finds a way to send copies of itself to other computers. The most common method for this is through your email to the contacts in your Address Book, but that is not the only method.

A Virus is a program designed to do damage to your computer or the OS. Some viruses will damage your HD while others will damage the OS files.

Answer 5

A virus is a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer; "a true virus cannot spread to another computer without human assistance"

Whereas a worm is a software program capable of reproducing itself that can spread from one computer to the next over a network; "worms take advantage of automatic file sending and receiving features found on many computers"

Answer 6

An internet worm will infect your computer then actively look for other computers to infect through the internet. It can search a network for computers that are vulnerable and infect them.
A virus needs to piggy back off of something (usually a program) to infect another computer. For a virus to spread it requires the user to actively place the file it has infected on their computer for it to work

Answer 7

My interpretation is that a virus is a file that corrupts your computer and can be sent via email to other computers and a worm is numerous files that can spread throughout a network. I may be wrong but thats how i think it is.

Joma

Answer 8

Worm stands for Write once read many. Viruses spread in various ways,not certain about worms.

Answer 9

A worm is a program that spreads from computer to computer.
A virus is a program which injects code in files.

Answer 10

Worm is a propogation method for a virus.