A Survey on Detection Methods Against Internet Worm Attacks

Abstract

Miscellaneous attacks against the Internet have become one of the major concerns among many imperfections
in contemporary cyberspace. In particular, worms are one highly dangerous type. How
to timely detect and utterly stop such attacks still remains an unresolved issue, and it is of great
necessity to review the existing quality work in the field of worm detection. In this paper, major
characteristics, working mechanisms, and the life cycle of worms are introduced. Then, we divide
existing worm detection techniques into two categories: machine learning methods and traditional
detection methods, and existing worm countermeasures are reviewed in detail by category. Finally,
some open issues in the field of worm detection are discussed, and the contents of this paper are
summarized. The goal of this paper is to let researchers comprehensively understand various existing
defense mechanisms against worms.