Fighting malware and spam

Replication

Creating further copies of oneself

Replication is carried out by two of the main classes of malware: viruses and worms. These types are often referred to as self-replicating malware, and are considered highly dangerous due to their ability to spread on their own without human interaction.

Viruses replicate by placing their own code into other files, and thus generally only spread across a local system on their own, although they may also travel via network shares of file-sharing systems. Worms spread from system to system across networks, whether using vulnerabilities to attack real systems directly or by sending themselves as attachments to emails or other forms of message and using social engineering to trick recipients into running them. When validating such items for inclusion in a test collection, samples should always be replicated to ensure they function properly and are not corrupt samples, misinfections or mere intended viruses.