Re: [PLUG] worms vs viruses

[Greg Lopp <lopp@fuse.net>]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2002 at 02:58:49PM -0500, Jon Galt wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Feb 2002 Darxus@chaosreigns.com wrote:
> 
> > On 02/22, Jon Galt wrote:
> > > By the way, what exactly is a worm anyway?  I believe a Trojan is a
> > 
> > A worm is a self propagating virus.  Instead of waiting for an opportunity
> > to copy itself to another file, and then wait for that file to be
> > transferred to another machine, it actively seaks out other machines that
> > it can infect - generally through security holes in server software.  It
> > scans a network for servers running a vulnerable server program, and uses
> > an exploit to gain control of that server, installs itself on the new
> > server, and then continues from the new server.
> 
> So the difference is that a worm is a special virus that knows how to
> operate over networks?  Or...
> 
> We could say that a virus propagates to new programs (which may or may not
> be copied to new computers), and a worm propagates to new computers on a
> network over network connections....
> 
Yep.  That seems to be the definition that the folks at Symantec
have settled on.  From google's html-ized www.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/worm.vs.virus.pdf :
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What is the difference between a computer virus and a computer
worm?
Viruses are computer programs that are designed to spread
themselves from one file to another on a single computer. A virus
might rapidly infect every application file on an individual
computer, or slowly infect the documents on that computer, but it
does not intentionally try to spread itself from that computer to
other computers. In most cases, that's where humans come in. We
send e-mail document attachments, trade programs on diskettes, or
copy files to file servers. When the next unsuspecting user
receives the infected file or disk, they spread the virus to
their computer, and so on. Worms, on the other hand, are
insidious because they rely less (or not at all) upon human
behavior in order to spread themselves from one computer to
others. The computer worm is a program that is designed to copy
itself from one computer to another over a network (e.g. by using
e-mail). The worm spreads itself to many computers over a
network, and doesn't wait for a human being to help. This means
that computer worms spread much more rapidly than computer viruses.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And yes, I realize that I'm not really adding to the discussion.

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