电脑蠕虫与电脑病毒相似，是一种能够自我复制的电脑zh:程序。

与电脑病毒不同的是，电脑蠕虫不需要附在别的进程内，可能不用用户介入操作也能自我复制或运行。电脑蠕虫未必会直接破坏被感染的系统，却几乎都对网络有害。电脑蠕虫可能会执行垃圾代码以发动分布式阻断服务攻击，令到计算机的执行效率极大程度降低，从而影响电脑的正常使用；可能会损毁或修改目标电脑的文件；亦可能只是浪费带宽。（恶意的）电脑蠕虫可根据其目的分成2类：

以蠕虫指称可以自我复制的进程，最早来自约翰·布鲁勒尔（John Brunner）1975年的小说《震荡波骑士》。

A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. Often, it uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, even if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.