Self patching virus?

http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-5065117.html?tag=fd_top

Apparently a new worm, W32.Welchia, a variant of the MSBlast you may have heard about last week, downloads a patch to prevent future worms to attack your computer the same way it did. Also the worm deletes itself the first time it is run in 2004.

So will this be the new trend? 'helpful' viruses and worms that actually download patches for people, thus preventing future attacks? Hopefully it is not. While this worm appears to be 'helpful' it is still causing the major problems of its more harmful cousin. This worm still wants to propagate itself to as many people as possible. That means the worm is still clogging up networks with its own traffic plus the additional traffic of the patch downloading.

So as cool as it may seem to have a virus that patches yoru computer and deletes itself, you are better off NEVER HAVE GOTTEN THE VIRUS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Here is a horrible comparison: Man-made Cancer that will cure your body form ever developing Cancer again. The hitch is that you still will have the worst symptoms of Brain Cancer for two years. Sure you will never have Cancer again, but maybe you wouldn't have in the first place. Was the 2 years of suffering worth it?

Ok, like I said, horrible comparision.

Get Anti-Virus Software, Download your patches, and try to get some sort of firewall (hardware, software, it doesn't matter anythign is better than nothing).
- posted by Doug @ 4:32:00 PM