Societal Impact of Information Technology:
Societal Impact of Information Technology The developments in the field of information technology eliminated numerous barriers that traditionally separated individuals, organizations and societies at different geographic locations. IT redefined the entire concept of time, space and distance.

index:
i ndex Plagiarism Privacy Security Common Threats Typical Information Protection Program Intellectual Property Rights Patent, Copyright and Computer Programs Cybersquatting Careers in IT Conclusion

Plagiarism:
Plagiarism The word plagiarism comes from a Latin word for kidnapping. In this perspective, plagiarism is stealing a person’s ideas or writing. Plagiarism may thus be defined as the unauthorized or close reproduction of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. Plagiarism can appear in many different contexts but in academics, it is most commonly associated with writing and borrowing of ideas without lending credit to the source from where the material was taken.

Plagiarism , Avoid Plagiarism:
Plagiarism Avoid Plagiarism Procrastination is one of the leading causes of plagiarism. Precise documentation would be a waste of time, but you will waste a lot more time trying to defend yourself against an allegation of plagiarism. Ensure to point to in your document where you are directly quoting a source, when you are paraphrasing and when you are summarizing. In case, if you aren’t sure that you are documenting your sources correctly, make a point to ask your seniors.

Privacy:
Privacy Privacy focuses on the rights of the individual tempered with the practical limits of functioning within the society. To participate in a society, individuals have to come in contact with one another as they go about their daily lives. And, individuals will have to reveal some facts about themselves in order to engage others within the society. The privacy can be defined which would scribe privilege to one’s right to be left alone. Privacy should also apply to social groups and other associations. Freedom to select one’s associations is a basic tenet of the Constitution, and this right should extent to one’s personal information.

Privacy >> Improving Privacy:
Privacy >> Improving Privacy Ways to Improve Privacy are: Awareness Choice/Consent Participation Security Enforcement

Security:
Security The purpose of information protection is to protect an organization’s valuable resources, such as information, hardware and software. Through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards, security helps the organization meets its business objectives or missions by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, employees and other tangible and intangible assets.

Security >> Information Protection:
Security >> Information Protection Information protection is a means to an end and not the end in itself. The responsibilities and accountabilities of the information owners, providers and users of computer services and other parties concerned with the protection of information and computer assets should be explicit.

Common Threats:
Common Threats Information Processing Systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage that can result in significant losses. The damage can range from errors harming database integrity to fires destroying entire complexes. Losses can stem from the actions of supposedly trusted employees defrauding a system, from outside hackers, or from careless data entry. Precision in estimating information protection-related losses is not possible because many losses are never discovered, and others are hidden to avoid unfavorable publicity.

Typical Information Protection Program:
Typical Information Protection Program Over the years, the computer security group responsible for access control and disaster recovery planning has evolved into the enterprise wide information protection group. This group has ever expanding roles and responsibilities.

Typical Information Protection Program:
This group’s ever expanding roles and responsibilities include: Firewall Control BIA Virus Control Team CERT PC Crime Investigation Records Management Encryption Email and Voice Mail Policy EWIPP Industrial Espionage Controls Contract Personnel Agreements Legal Issues Internet Monitoring Disaster Planning Business Continuity Planning Digital Signature Secure Single Sign-On Information Classification LAN Modem Control Remote Access Security Awareness Programs Typical Information Protection Program

Intellectual Property Rights:
Intellectual Property Rights Intellectual Property is the intangible but legally recognized right to property in the property of one’s intellect. IPR allow the originator of certain ideas, expressions and inventions to exclude others from using these ideas without permission. The three traditionally recognized forms are copyright, trademark and patent. Copyright protects expressive works. Trademark protects marks that are placed on goods to distinguish them from other goods. Patent protects inventions. Both U.S. and international law also protect less well-known forms of intellectual property, such as trade secrets, know-how and certain industrial designs.

Intellectual Property Rights >> Types of Intellectual Property:
Intellectual Property Rights >> Types of Intellectual Property Copyright Domain Name Geographical Indication Industrial Design Rights Know-How Moral Rights Patent Utility Model Personality Rights Related Rights Service Marks Trade Dress Trade Secret Trademark Protected Designation of Origin Traditional Knowledge

Patent, Copyright and Computer Programs:
Patent, Copyright and Computer Programs Computer programs are composed of information and they can be protected as literary works because of their expressive content. Copyright gives the creator of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright can be applied to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium. Some jurisdictions also recognize moral rights of the creator of a work, such as the right to be credited for the work. In law, copyright is grouped under the umbrella term intellectual property along with patents and trademarks.

Cybersquatting:
Cybersquatting When WWW started, many businesses were slow to realize the new medium’s importance and potential and many failed to register their business names as domain names. Many cyber squatters, registered their domain names, hoping to sell them to the owners. Many owners paid, others took legal action to gain control of the domain name. owners of marks that weren’t famous had a much more difficult time. If the registrant chose to use the site to compete with the mark owner in the line of business for which the mark was protected, the mark owner might be able to maintain an infringement action. If the registrant did nothing with the domain name other than register it, the mark owner’s options were limited. To address the problem of cybersquatting, govt. passed the Anti Cyber squatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) in 1999.

Careers in IT:
There is a huge list of Careers one can choose in IT. Some are mentioned here: PC Programmer PC Software Engineer Database Administrator Computer Hardware Engineer Scientist Computer Systems Manager IT Educator PC Security Specialist System Software Engineer PC Support Consultant PC Systems Analyst Network Administrator Network Communications Analyst Software Testing Project Management Virtualization Computer Operator Graphic Designer Gaming Industry Computer Graphics Expert Web Designer Careers in I T

PowerPoint Presentation:
IT has changed the way we socially connect with other people in many ways. Before the internet and the general use of computers, the only way to meet new people and talk to them was to meet face to face, normally in an office during a meeting or a cafe. Children had less ways to entertain themselves, and spent more time outdoors trying to find stuff to entertain them. These days, people spend a lot of time with technology, computers only a fraction of the technology that is available. Meetings in offices can now be held across the internet, webcam streaming each others faces and voices. This is extremely helpful for companies to talk to each other around the world, without being in the same room . Conclusion

PowerPoint Presentation:
Emails and texts can send messages almost instantly, making snail mail more obsolete. Children are spending more time playing video games on consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3. With the use of the internet on the Xbox consoles, combined with social networking websites such as Facebook and Google+, children and adults do not need to meet up to communicate with their friends, allowing them to talk and chat through the use of instant messaging and microphones. People can talk to family who live far away through Skype, allowing them to keep in contact free and easily .

PowerPoint Presentation:
This newfound technology is not all good, however. People have lost key social skills that are needed to communicate with others through life, such as during interviews for jobs. People working in offices who only contact other companies through video streaming do not know each other as much as they would if they were to meet up in a cafe to talk or during a face to face meeting. Children who are growing up with the internet and video games become shy and do not learn skills needed to communicate with other people in the world, making them lose confidence, which can change their attitude towards working and can stop them from meeting new friends. Overall, the technology we have today is a great addition to our daily lives, but we must not forget how to communicate without the technology, as it is important that we are able to talk face to face with others and have good social skills as it is important to possess these skills during our lives.

Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work. The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules.The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, particularly with the Romantic movement.


Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics. It is subject to sanctions like penalties, suspension, and even expulsion. Recently, cases of 'extreme plagiarism' have been identified in academia.
Plagiarism is not in itself a crime, but can constitute copyright infringement. In academia and industry, it is a serious ethical offense.Plagiarism and copyright infringement overlap to a considerable extent, but they are not equivalent concepts, and many types of plagiarism do not constitute copyright infringement, which is defined by copyright law and may be adjudicated by courts. Plagiarism is not defined or punished by law, but rather by institutions (including professional associations, educational institutions, and commercial entities, such as publishing companies).

Self-plagiarism
The reuse of significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of one's own work without acknowledging that one is doing so or citing the original work is sometimes described as "self-plagiarism"; the term "recycling fraud" has been used. Articles of this nature are often referred to as duplicate or multiple publication. In addition there can be a copyright issue if copyright of the prior work has been transferred to another entity. Typically, self-plagiarism is only considered a serious ethical issue in settings where someone asserts that a publication consists of new material, such as in publishing or factual documentation. It does not apply to public-interest texts, such as social, professional, and cultural opinions usually published in newspapers and magazines.


In academic fields, self-plagiarism occurs when an author reuses portions of his own published and copyrighted work in subsequent publications, but without attributing the previous publication. Identifying self-plagiarism is often difficult because limited reuse of material is accepted both legally (as fair use) and ethically.
The concept
The term "self-plagiarism" has been challenged as being self-contradictory, an oxymoron,[ and on other grounds.


For example, Stephanie J. Bird argues that self-plagiarism is a misnomer, since by definition plagiarism concerns the use of others' material.
However, the phrase is used to refer to specific forms of putatively unethical publication. Bird identifies the ethical issues of "self-plagiarism" as those of "dual or redundant publication." She also notes that in an educational context, "self-plagiarism" refers to the case of a student who resubmits "the same essay for credit in two different courses." As David B. Resnik clarifies, "Self-plagiarism involves dishonesty but not intellectual theft.


According to Patrick M. Scanlon
"Self-plagiarism" is a term with some specialized currency. Most prominently, it is used in discussions of research and publishing integrity in biomedicine, where heavy publish-or-perish demands have led to a rash of duplicate and "salami-slicing" publication, the reporting of a single study's results in "least publishable units" within multiple articles (Blancett, Flanagin, & Young, 1995; Jefferson, 1998; Kassirer & Angell, 1995; Lowe, 2003; McCarthy, 1993; Schein & Paladugu, 2001; Wheeler, 1989). Roig (2002) offers a useful classification system including four types of self-plagiarism: duplicate publication of an article in more than one journal; partitioning of one study into multiple publications, often called salami-slicing; text recycling; and copyright infringement.

Malware, short for malicious software, is any software used to disrupt computer operations, gather sensitive information, gain access to private computer systems, or display unwanted advertising. Before the term malware was coined by Yisrael Radai in 1990, malicious software was referred to as computer viruses. The first category of malware propagation concerns parasitic software fragments that attach themselves to some existing executable content. The fragment may be machine code that infects some existing application, utility, or system program, or even the code used to boot a computer system. Malware is defined by its malicious intent, acting against the requirements of the computer user, and does not include software that causes unintentional harm due to some deficiency.
Malware may be stealthy, intended to steal information or spy on computer users for an extended period without their knowledge, as for example Regin, or it may be designed to cause harm, often as sabotage (e.g., Stuxnet), or to extort payment (CryptoLocker). 'Malware' is an umbrella term used to refer to a variety of forms of hostile or intrusive software, including computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, ransomware, spyware, adware, scareware, and other malicious programs. It can take the form of executable code, scripts, active content, and other software. Malware is often disguised as, or embedded in, non-malicious files. As of 2011 the majority of active malware threats were worms or trojans rather than viruses.
In law, malware is sometimes known as a computer contaminant, as in the legal codes of several U.S. states.
Spyware or other malware is sometimes found embedded in programs supplied officially by companies, e.g., downloadable from websites, that appear useful or attractive, but may have, for example, additional hidden tracking functionality that gathers marketing statistics. An example of such software, which was described as illegitimate, is the Sony rootkit, a Trojan embedded into CDs sold by Sony, which silently installed and concealed itself on purchasers' computers with the intention of preventing illicit copying; it also reported on users' listening habits, and unintentionally created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware.
Software such as anti-virus, anti-malware, and firewalls are used to protect against activity identified as malicious, and to recover from attacks.

widespread, rather than any specific types of behavior. The term computer virus is used for a program that embeds itself in some other executable software (including the operating system itself) on the target system without the user's consent and when that is run causes the virus to spread to other executable. On the other hand, a worm is a stand-alone malware program that actively transmits itself over a network to infect other computers. These definitions lead to the observation that a virus requires the user to run an infected program or operating system for the virus to spread, whereas a worm spreads itself.

COMPUTER VIRUSES

A computer virus is a type of malicious software program ("malware") that, when executed, replicates by reproducing itself (copying its own source code) or infecting other computer programs by modifying them.Infecting computer programs can include as well, data files, or the "boot" sector of the hard drive. When this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a computer virus. The term "virus" is also commonly, but erroneously, used to refer to other types of malware. "Malware" encompasses computer viruses along with many other forms of malicious software, such as computer "worms", ransomware, trojan horses, keyloggers, rootkits, spyware, adware, malicious Browser Helper Object (BHOs) and other malicious software. The majority of active malware threats are actually trojan horse programs or computer worms rather than computer viruses. The term computer virus, coined by Fred Cohen in 1985, is a misnomer. Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected host computers, such as acquisition of hard disk space or central processing unit (CPU) time, accessing private information (e.g., credit card numbers), corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user's screen, spamming their e-mail contacts, logging their keystrokes, or even rendering the computer useless. However, not all viruses carry a destructive "payload" or attempt to hide themselves—the defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-replicating computer programs which install themselves without user consent.
Virus writers use social engineering deceptions and exploit detailed knowledge of security vulnerabilities to gain access to their hosts' computers and computing resources. The vast majority of viruses target systems running Microsoft Windows, employing a variety of mechanisms to infect new hosts, and often using complex anti-detection/stealth strategies to evade antivirus software.Motives for creating viruses can include seeking profit (e.g., with ransomware), desire to send a political message, personal amusement, to demonstrate that a vulnerability exists in software, for sabotage and denial of service, or simply because they wish to explore cybersecurityissues, artificial life and evolutionary algorithms.
Computer viruses currently cause billions of dollars' worth of economic damage each year, due to causing system failure, wasting computer resources, corrupting data, increasing maintenance costs, etc. In response, free, open-source antivirus tools have been developed, and an industry of antivirus software has cropped up, selling or freely distributing virus protection to users of various operating systems. As of 2005, even though no currently existing antivirus software was able to uncover all computer viruses (especially new ones), computer security researchers are actively searching for new ways to enable antivirus solutions to more effectively detect emerging viruses, before they have already become widely distributed.
Image result for computer virus
Operations and functions
Parts
A viable computer virus must contain a search routine, which locates new files or new disks which are worthwhile targets for infection. Secondly, every computer virus must contain a routine to copy itself into the program which the search routine locates. The three main virus parts are:
Infection mechanism
Infection mechanism (also called 'infection vector'), is how the virus spreads or propagates. A virus typically has a search routine, which locates new files or new disks for infection.
Trigger
The trigger, which is also known as logic bomb, is the compiled version that could be activated any time an executable file with the virus is run that determines the event or condition for the malicious "payload" to be activated or delivered such as a particular date, a particular time, particular presence of another program, capacity of the disk exceeding some limit, or a double-click that opens a particular file.
Payload
The "payload" is the actual body or data that perform the actual malicious purpose of the virus. Payload activity might be noticeable (e.g., because it causes the system to slow down or "freeze"), as most of the time the "payload" itself is the harmful activity, or some times non-destructive but distributive, which is called Virus hoax.
Phases
Virus phases is the life cycle of the computer virus, described by using an analogy to biology. This life cycle can be divided into four phases:
Dormant phase
The virus program is idle during this stage. The virus program has managed to access the target user's computer or software, but during this stage, the virus does not take any action. The virus will eventually be activated by the "trigger" which states which event will execute the virus, such as a date, the presence of another program or file, the capacity of the disk exceeding some limit or the user taking a certain action (e.g., double-clicking on a certain icon, opening an e-mail, etc.). Not all viruses have this stage.
Propagation phase
The virus starts propagating, that is multiplying and self-replicating itself. The virus places a copy of itself into other programs or into certain system areas on the disk. The copy may not be identical to the propagating version; viruses often "morph" or change to evade detection by IT professionals and anti-virus software. Each infected program will now contain a clone of the virus, which will itself enter a propagation phase.Triggering phase
A dormant virus moves into this phase when it is activated, and will now perform the function for which it was intended. The triggering phase can be caused by a variety of system events, including a count of the number of times that this copy of the virus has made copies of itself.
Execution phase
This is the actual work of the virus, where the "payload" will be released. It can be destructive such as deleting files on disk, crashing the system, or corrupting files or relatively harmless such as popping up humorous or political messages on screen.
Infection targets and replication techniques
Computer viruses infect a variety of different subsystems on their host computers and software. One manner of classifying viruses is to analyze whether they reside in binary executables (such as .EXE or .COM files), data files (such as Microsoft Word documents or PDF files), or in the boot sector of the host's hard drive (or some combination of all of these).

In computing, Trojan horse, or Trojan, is any malicious computer program which is used to hack into a computer by misleading users of its true intent. The term is derived from the Ancient Greekstory of the wooden horse that was used to help Greek troops invade the city of Troy by stealth.
Trojans are generally spread by some form of social engineering, for example where a user is duped into executing an e-mail attachment disguised to be unsuspicious, (e.g., a routine form to be filled in), or by drive-by download. Although their payload can be anything, many modern forms act as a backdoor, contacting a controller which can then have unauthorized access to the affected computer. This infection allows an attacker to access users' personal information such as banking information, passwords, or personal identity (IP address).
Unlike computer viruses and worms, Trojans generally do not attempt to inject themselves into other files or otherwise propagate themselves.
Image result for In computing, Trojan horse, or Trojan, is any malicious computer program which is used to hack into a computer by misleading users of its true intent. The term is derived from the Ancient Greek story of the wooden horse that was used to help Greek troops invade the city of Troy by stealth.[1][2][3][4][5] Trojans are generally spread by some form of social engineering, for example where a user is duped into executing an e-mail attachment disguised to be unsuspicious, (e.g., a routine form to be filled in), or by drive-by download. Although their payload can be anything, many modern forms act as a backdoor, contacting a controller which can then have unauthorized access to the affected computer.[6] This infection allows an attacker to access users' personal information such as banking information, passwords, or personal identity (IP address). Unlike computer viruses and worms, Trojans generally do not attempt to inject themselves into other files or otherwise propagate themselves.[7]
Purpose and uses
If installed or run with elevated privileges a Trojan will generally have unlimited access. What it does with this power depends on the motives of the attacker.
Destructive
Crashing the computer or device.
Modification or deletion of files.
Data corruption.
Formatting disks, destroying all contents.
Spreading malware across the network.
Spying on user activities and access sensitive information.
Use of resources or identity
Use of the machine as part of a botnet (e.g. to perform automated spamming or to distribute Denial-of-service attacks)
Using computer resources for mining cryptocurrencies 
Using the infected computer as proxy for illegal activities and/or attacks on other computers.
Infecting other connected devices on the network.
Money theft, ransom
Electronic money theft
Installing ransomware such as CryptoLocker
Data theft
Data theft, including for industrial espionage
User passwords or payment card information
User personally identifiable information
Trade secrets
Spying, surveilance or stalking
Keystroke logging
Watching the user's screen
Viewing the user's webcam
Controlling the computer system remotely
Trojan horses in this way may require interaction with a malicious controller (not necessarily distributing the Trojan horse) to fulfill their purpose. It is possible for those involved with Trojans to scan computers on a network to locate any with a Trojan horse installed, which the hacker can then control.
Some Trojans take advantage of a security flaw in older versions of Internet Explorer and Google Chrome to use the host computer as an anonymizer proxy to effectively hide Internet usage, enabling the controller to use the Internet for illegal purposes while all potentially incriminating evidence indicates the infected computer or its IP address. The host's computer may or may not show the internet history of the sites viewed using the computer as a proxy. The first generation of anonymizer Trojan horses tended to leave their tracks in the page view histories of the host computer. Later generations of the Trojan horse tend to "cover" their tracks more efficiently. Several versions of Sub7 have been widely circulated in the US and Europe and became the most widely distributed examples of this type of Trojan horse.
In German-speaking countries, spyware used or made by the government is sometimes called govware. Govware is typically a trojan horse software used to intercept communications from the target computer. Some countries like Switzerland and Germany have a legal framework governing the use of such software. Examples of govware trojans include the Swiss MiniPanzer and MegaPanzer and the German "state trojan" nicknamed R2D2.
Due to the popularity of botnets among hackers and the availability of advertising services that permit authors to violate their users' privacy, Trojan horses are becoming more common. According to a survey conducted by BitDefender from January to June 2009, "Trojan-type malware is on the rise, accounting for 83-percent of the global malware detected in the world." Trojans have a relationship with worms, as they spread with the help given by worms and travel across the internet with them. 

COMPUTER WORM

A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers.[1] Often, it uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program.[2] Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, even if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.
Many worms that have been created are designed only to spread, and do not attempt to change the systems they pass through. However, as the Morris worm and Mydoom showed, even these "payload free" worms can cause major disruption by increasing network traffic and other unintended effects.
History

Morris worm source code floppy diskette at the Computer History Museum
The actual term "worm" was first used in John Brunner's 1975 novel, The Shockwave Rider. In that novel, Nichlas Haflinger designs and sets off a data-gathering worm in an act of revenge against the powerful men who run a national electronic information web that induces mass conformity. "You have the biggest-ever worm loose in the net, and it automatically sabotages any attempt to monitor it... There's never been a worm with that tough a head or that long a tail!"[3]
On November 2, 1988, Robert Tappan Morris, a Cornell University computer science graduate student, unleashed what became known as the Morris worm, disrupting a large number of computers then on the Internet, guessed at the time to be one tenth of all those connected[4] During the Morris appeal process, the U.S. Court of Appeals estimated the cost of removing the virus from each installation was in the range of $200–53,000, and prompting the formation of the CERT Coordination Center[5] and Phage mailing list.[6] Morris himself became the first person tried and convicted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.[7]
Harm
Any code designed to do more than spread the worm is typically referred to as the "payload". Typical malicious payloads might delete files on a host system (e.g., the ExploreZip worm), encrypt files in a ransomware attack, or exfiltrate data such as confidential documents or passwords.
Probably the most common payload for worms is to install a backdoor. This allows the computer to be remotely controlled by the worm author as a "zombie". Networks of such machines are often referred to as botnets and are very commonly used for a range of malicious purposed, including sending spam or performing DoS attacks.
Countermeasures
Worms spread by exploiting vulnerabilities in operating systems. Vendors with security problems supply regular security updates[13] (see "Patch Tuesday"), and if these are installed to a machine then the majority of worms are unable to spread to it. If a vulnerability is disclosed before the security patch released by the vendor, a zero-day attack is possible.
Users need to be wary of opening unexpected email,[14][15] and should not run attached files or programs, or visit web sites that are linked to such emails. However, as with the ILOVEYOU worm, and with the increased growth and efficiency of phishing attacks, it remains possible to trick the end-user into running malicious code.
Anti-virus and anti-spyware software are helpful, but must be kept up-to-date with new pattern files at least every few days. The use of a firewall is also recommended.
In the April–June, 2008, issue of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, computer scientists describe a potential new way to combat internet worms. The researchers discovered how to contain the kind of worm that scans the Internet randomly, looking for vulnerable hosts to infect. They found that the key is for software to monitor the number of scans that machines on a network send out. When a machine starts sending out too many scans, it is a sign that it has been infected, allowing administrators to take it off line and check it for malware.[16][17] In addition, machine learning techniques can be used to detect new worms, by analyzing the behavior of the suspected computer.[18]
Users can minimize the threat posed by worms by keeping their computers' operating system and other software up to date, avoiding opening unrecognized or unexpected emails and running firewall and antivirus software.[19]
Mitigation techniques include:
ACLs in routers and switches
Packet-filters
TCP Wrapper/ACL enabled network service daemons
Nullroute
Worms with good intent
Beginning with the very first research into worms at Xerox PARC, there have been attempts to create useful worms. Those worms allowed testing by John Shoch and Jon Hupp of the Ethernet principles on their network of Xerox Alto computers. The Nachi family of worms tried to download and install patches from Microsoft's website to fix vulnerabilities in the host system—by exploiting those same vulnerabilities.[20] In practice, although this may have made these systems more secure, it generated considerable network traffic, rebooted the machine in the course of patching it, and did its work without the consent of the computer's owner or user. Regardless of their payload or their writers' intentions, most security experts regard all worms as malware.

Several worms, like XSS worms, have been written to research how worms spread. For example, the effects of changes in social activity or user behavior. One study proposed what seems to be the first computer worm that operates on the second layer of the OSI model (Data link Layer), it utilizes topology information such as Content-addressable memory (CAM) tables and Spanning Tree information stored in switches to propagate and probe for vulnerable nodes until the enterprise network is covered

.