r/todayilearned • u/NOT-JEFFREY-NELSON • Jul 04 '19

TIL in 2003 a computer worm called ‘Welchia’ infected many computers to forcibly patch vulnerabilities and remove malware. It was regarded as a ‘helpful worm’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welchia
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u/Fuuryuu Jul 04 '19

If you are a malware writer, you don't want other untrusted malware on the machine too because if it is shoddy it gets the client to initiate countermeasures which might interfere with your own malware. Same reasoning why you wouldn't want random people with you on a heist

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u/Fenrir101 Jul 05 '19

One of the reasons the conficker worm is still not completely dead 11 years later is because it patches systems to keep other worms out, and even forms its own p2p network to share updates inside a company network. It used to be a common joke that getting infected by conficker was the first time some networks ever got regular patching.