With the explosive growth of network applications and complexity, the threat of Internet worms against network security becomes increasingly serious. Especially under the environment of Internet, the variety of the propagation ways and the complexity of the application environment result in worm with much higher frequency of outbreak, much deeper latency and more wider coverage, and Internet worms have been a primary issue faced by malicious code researchers. In this paper, the concept and research situation of Internet worms, exploration function component and execution mechanism are first presented, then the scanning strategies and propagation model are discussed, and finally the critical techniques of Internet worm prevention are given. Some major problems and research trends in this area are also addressed.