A more recent development in malicious software is the Email virus. The first rapidly spreading e-mail viruses, such as Melissa made use of a Microsoft word macro embedded in an attachment. If the recipient opens the email attachment, the word macro is activated. Then the email virus sends itself to everyone on the mailing list in the user`s email package. The virus does local damage.

At the end of 1999, a more powerful version of the email virus appeared. This newer version can be activated merely by opening an email that contains the virus rather than opening an attachment. The virus uses the visual basic scripting language supported by the email package.

A new generation of malware that arrives via email and uses email software feature to replicate itself across the internet. The virus propagates itself as soon as it is activated (either by opening an email attachment or by opening the email) to all email addresses known to the infected host. As a result, whereas viruses used to take months or years to propagate, they now do so in hours. This makes it very difficult for antivirus software to respond before much damage is done. Ultimately, a greater degree of security must be built into internet utility and application software on PC`s to counter the growing threat.

An e-mail virus has some of the characteristics of a worm, because it propagates itself from system to system. However, we can still classify it as virus because it requires a human to move it forward. A worm actively seeks out more machines to infect and each machine that is infected serves as an automated launching pad for attacks on other machines. Network worm programs use network connections to spread from system to system. Once active within a system, a network worm can behave as a computer virus or bacteria, or it could implant Trojan horse programs or perform any number of disruptive actions.

To replicate itself, a network worm uses some sort of network vehicle. It may use Electronic mail facility, Remote execution capability, and remote login capability.

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A worm mails a copy of itself to other systems, a worm executes a copy of itself on another system, and a worm logs onto a remote system as a user and then uses commands to copy itself from one system to the other.

Virus or worm is created and destroyed by man