Glossary of Data Communications TermsCourtesy Enterprise-Wide Computing, Inc. |
Term:
worm
Definition: 1. A destructive program that replicates itself throughout disk and memory, using up the computer's resources and eventually putting the system down (see virus and logic bomb); 2. a program that moves throughout a network and deposits information at each node for diagnostic purposes, or causes idle computers to share some of the processing workload; 3. WORM (Write Once Read Many) a storage device that uses an optical medium that can be recorded only once. Updating requires destroying the existing data (zeroes [0] made ones [1]), and writing the revised data to an unused part of the disk. |