Network viruses: their working principles and marriages with hacking programs

We coin the name "network viruses", which refer to those viruses spreading through networks. Security attacks can come from both viruses and hacking programs. A network virus makes use of networking protocols and/or applications to spread. We surveyed several hundreds of computer viruses and classified them based on their spreading and infecting mechanisms. Virus intelligence is introduced to describe the various levels of implementing complexity and infecting abilities of network viruses. Network viruses make uses of system network mechanisms, search local and remote system information, monitor network traffic, take advantage of system and network vulnerabilities, and build network connections. Intensive network hacking techniques could be borrowed in network virus implementations and both system and network vulnerabilities could be taken advantage of. There are advantages to incorporate hacking abilities into viruses over hacking directly.