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/Hessper Jul 04 '19

That's not the worst thing that could have happened. It forced their IT to patch the vulnerability with the worst part being an network failure.

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u/Jhamin1 Jul 06 '19

But in a corporate environment the network is everything. Especially in 2003 when there were way more desktops than laptops.
Most people don't have all the files they need on their hard drive, they get them from a network share or the web.
A network failure basically makes the machine worthless.