Do You Know a Virus from a Worm?

Here is a question I am asked all the time. Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a Virus and a Worm? Perhaps you - yourself have stepped into my office and asked this very question.

Well very simply a virus is a program that replicates, which means it spreads from file to file on your system and from PC to PC. In addition, it may be programmed to erase or damage data.

Worms are generally considered to be a subset of viruses, but with certain key differences. A worm is a computer program that replicates, but does not infect other files. Instead, it installs itself once on a computer and then looks for a way to spread to other computers.

In the case of a virus, the longer it goes undetected, the more infected files there will be on the computer. Worms, however, create a single instance of their code. Moreover, unlike a virus, a worm code is stand-alone.

To sum this up, a worm is a separate file while a virus is a set of code which adds itself to existing files.