Should Microsoft release patching worms to fix every vulnerable system on the Internet in a matter of minutes?
There’s no need. With Windows update tools installed and automaticaly enabled on the end host, Microsoft (or any big software vendor) has that access. AV vendors have been doing this for years, both Apple and Microsoft do this at the OS level, and so on. Some people even have their IDS signatures update automatically. When you have an agent-based system like that deployed, there’s no need to deploy self propagating code (like a worm) to affect change everywhere. You can achieve the same result more quickly with agents. Instead of waiting for the worm to find all hosts, you can hit every host immediately. I’m not sure it is the same thing. First of all because of bandwidth. When you have 100 (or maybe 500?) million Windows users that want to install a 200MB service pack, how much bandwidth should you have? And how many hours (days? weeks?) do you need to patch them all? A patching-worm could take advantage of a user’s bandwidth. Actually patch distribution is pretty efficient by now. Bo
