Extortion Worms: Internet Worms that Discourage Disinfection

Another paper that covers a proposed worst-case scenario:

When thinking about clever proposed schemes for infecting the Internet with a worm in 20 minutes or 30 seconds, I started wondering what would happen next. People (I'll call them "white hats") would hurriedly figure out what software made them vulnerable, and then they'd arrange to become invulnerable to further infections and to eradicate the worm from their machines. Ideally the makers of the worm (I'll call them "black hats") would like to discourage white hats from doing this. Since the worm at this point would control a significant portion of the computational resources of the Internet, it would seem to be within reach for the worm to use its installed base to provide impressive discouragement for disinfection. This paper discusses how this might be accomplished, and how the game might play out.

Source: Extortion Worms: Internet Worms that Discourage Disinfection, Tim Freeman.