Analysis: Malware, Virus, and Worm
All worms and viruses or malware, but there are significant differences between worms and viruses. Malware, being a general term, can also include many other threats. However, a worm behaves in a very specific way, making it significantly different than a virus.
A worm can replicate and spread itself from one computer to another. On the other hand, a virus cannot self-replicate, and it needs to be sent by a user or software to travel between two different computers.
Malware, virus or worm: what is more dangerous?
While it is difficult to say which is the most dangerous, the following is generally true.
Malware vs worm vs virus
Malware refers to any kind of software that is regarded as malignant or malicious, no matter how it works, what it intends to do, or how it is issued. A virus is very specific in the sense that it self-replicates by adding its code to other applications.
In a comparison of malware vs. worm, malware is more dangerous because it encompasses both worms and all other software-based threats, such as spyware, ransomware, and Trojans. The same can be said of the malware vs. virus conversation. Trying to ascertain which is more dangerous—malware, viruses, or worms—is like trying to figure out which is better at transporting people: vehicles, cars, or trucks.
Virus vs worm
On the other hand, the "virus vs. worm" discussion is a little more nuanced. Both viruses and worms can do significant damage to your computer, but the ways in which they spread and are activated can make one a more significant danger than the other. In many cases, it depends on how your network is structured.
Why a worm is dangerous
If your network consists of many computers connected to each other in a ring formation, then a worm may be a bigger threat than a virus. The same could be said of a network set up in a hub formation with a server in the middle that serves all the computers in the network, particularly if the server does not have adequate antimalware defenses.
In these kinds of architectures, a worm, once introduced to one computer, can replicate itself and spread to the other computers in the network. This can give one worm the power to infect the entire network. If a virus is introduced to an unprotected hub-and-spoke network or a ring network, users will still have to send the virus to each other and then open the file for each computer in the network to get infected.
Why a virus is just as dangerous
On the surface, a worm, which is also referred to as a worm virus, will appear more dangerous than a virus, but because computers within an organization's network interact with the internet often more than they do with each other, viruses can be just as dangerous. For example, a single website that several users visit can download a virus to their computers, and when they open the file containing the virus, all of them can get infected.
In many situations, a worm's functionality can also work against itself. Because the worm is designed to spread from one computer to another, it risks the chance of exposing itself with each lateral move. If, for example, a worm has to go through a firewall as it tries to go from one computer to the next, the firewall may detect it. At that point, system administrators can use relatively basic forensic analysis to figure out where the worm came from.
This is not the case with viruses. Several users can download the same or different viruses, and figuring out where they came from, especially if they did not come from the same emails or websites, can present a significant challenge.
Therefore, the difference between malware and a virus is not as much of a factor as is the difference between a virus and a worm. The same can be said of the difference between malware and worm because malware encompasses worms.
