Network Creeper

Viruses that spread to new hosts by finding writable network drives (or ´shares´) and copying themselves there or infecting files on those shares are sometimes referred to as network creepers. Note that a distinction is made between network creepers and other viruses that just happen to infect files on network shares because they infect files on all local and mapped drives. To be a network creeper, a virus has to specifically search for shared network resources, and will find ones that are not currently in use by its host machine. VBS / Netlog has shown how surprisingly successful this technique can be when depending solely on Microsoft Networking and open shares (ones with write-access but no password). Some antivirus researchers consider network creepers to be worms.