Mass mailing worm

A mass mailing worm is similar to e-mail-borne viruses, with the primary difference being that mass mailing worms are self-contained instead of infecting an existing file] as [[e-mail-borne viruses do. Once a mass mailing worm has infected a system, it typically searches the system for e-mail addresses and then sends copies of itself to those addresses, using either the system's e-mail client or a self-contained mailer built into the worm itself. A mass mailing worm typically sends a single copy of itself to multiple recipients at once. Besides overwhelming servers and networks with massive volumes of e-mails, mass mailing worms often cause serious performance issues for infected systems. Examples of mass mailing worms are Beagle, Mydoom, and Netsky.