Computer Viruses?

Question

Is there such a thing as a computer virus that seeks out, or is sent to attack another computer virus?

Answer 1

Yes, it's called an anti-virus program.

Sorry, just had to get that one in. :)

Answer 2

There were a couple of virus writers back in the Blaster worm days that created Viruses that would disable the other guys virus.

I don't know how many are out there, but it does happen.

Keep in mind that a virus that disables the other virus still does damage to your system.

Answer 3

I've never heard of one, but it's not impossible. Generally, it's a bad idea for a virus to assume that another one could be on the system, and since it's a virus and the author was up to no good, why would they attack another virus?

Wait a sec... now that I think about it someone did alter the blaster virus when that came out, it specifically destroyed existing copies of blaster, replicated itself across a network and closed the security hole before terminating itself, preventing blaster from spreading across the network it 'infected'.

Answer 4

It's called mallware, spyware and anti-virus protection. That is what these programs do, disable and quarantine the infected files. Use "Spybot, Search and Destroy", this is what this program does.