Von Neumann architecture
The von Neumann architecture is a model for a computing machine that uses a single storage structure to hold both the set of instructions on how to perform the computation and the data required or generated by the computation.
John von Neumann helped to create this model as an example of a general-purpose computing machine. By treating the instructions in the same way as the data, the machine could easily change the instructions. In other words the machine was reprogrammable.
Because the machine did not distinguish between instructions and data, it allowed a program to modify or replicate a program. These features are exploited by computer viruses when they add copies of themselves to existing program code.
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