A Tour of the Computer Worm Detection Space

Computer worm detection has been a challenging and often elusive task. This is partly because of the difficulty of accurately modeling either the normal behavior of computer networks or the malicious actions of computer worms. This paper presents a literature review on the worm detection techniques, highlighting the worm characteristics leveraged for detection and the limitations of the various detection techniques. The paper broadly categorizes the worm detection approaches into content signature based detection, polymorphic worm detection, anomaly based detection, and behavioral signature based detection. The gap in the literature in the techniques is indicated and is the main contribution of the paper. General Terms Malware detection, Computer Worm detection, Detection Techniques, Worm Characteristics