Abstract
A tapeworm is a parasite that lives inside the body of a bigger creature and sustains itself from its host’s resources. A software worm is a program that executes independently of other programs, replicates itself, and spreads through a network from computer to computer. A worm is a type of rogue software that resides in a host computer, but it is not a virus because it is not embedded in a host program. A worm propagates from host to host by exploiting a security hole or a vulnerability discovered by its creator. Section 3.4 shows how the Internet worm exploited security weaknesses in the finger and sendmail UNIX utilities. Section 2.11 describes a vulnerability in a decoder for jpeg images.
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Salomon, D. (2010). Worms. In: Elements of Computer Security. Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-006-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-006-9_3
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