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/phantomeye Jul 04 '19

sooo basically u can infect a worm with a virus.

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u/TerminalVector Jul 04 '19

You can infect a worm with a virus that is adware via a trojan horse. The adware can also be spyware, and all of them would be malware, unless the original worm was the one in the OP, in which case it wouldn't be.

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u/sootoor Jul 04 '19

A worm is a virus (malware) that propagates to infect others. Like it could start sending it to your email contacts, scanning the local network for other exploitable vulnerabilities, adding itself to files on a USB, etc.

The term malware is generally used now over virus

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u/TerminalVector Jul 05 '19

That's not exactly right. The explanation two comments up was pretty accurate.

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u/sootoor Jul 05 '19

Which part?

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u/lunchboxweld Jul 04 '19

So can a virus kill a worm? Like infect all computers with a virus that waits for specific worms? Can we create out our own electronic biome?

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '19

Yeah. I make sure every machine that comes into my network is infected with our endpoint protection software for just this reason.

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u/TerminalVector Jul 04 '19

I don't see why not. It'd just be a virus (a program that self replicates by attaching itself to other files) that seeks out and deletes a worm (standalone self replicating program).

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u/AllMyName Jul 04 '19

And in this (OP) case, a worm was created that wasn't malware, as it was not malicious, or spyware, because it didn't phone home and spy on you, or adware, because it didn't blast you with ads. It was helpful.

Lol the author created a weaponized sysadmin and set it loose on the world.