Japan is developing a "good" computer virus for the sake of security

Japan has decided to create a computer virus which should improve the cybers space

Japan has been developing malware that should prevent cyberattacks

The news that Japan is seeking to develop a “good” computer virus for cybersecurity purposes has flown widely around the world. The Defense Ministry in Japan has stated that they are looking forward to releasing such a virus in March 2020. Also, they have ensured that such cyber threat will be used ONLY as a prevention measure of cyber attacks and will not have any malicious purposes.^[1]

Japan has made such a decision due to the fact that the country falls behind other countries in the cybersecurity field. Another plan of the Defense Ministry is to level up the number of staff that is responsible for the security on the Internet. Japan is looking forward to increasing the employee number from 150 to 220. It is quite low, having in mind that the amount of security staff in the USA has already reached 6,200, in China – 130,000, and in North Korea – 7,000.^[2]

Experts find the word “virus” doubtful in this case

As security experts claim, the aim of this virus is to:

break into a computer system, hoping such as computer virus could work as a deterrent against cyberattacks.

However, according to Bitdefender, there are so few details provided about this “good” virus and everything might not be as positive as it looks from the first view. Cybersecurity experts are concerned about the word “virus” which definitely doesn't mean something defensive, but the opposite, makes you become doubtful and worried.

According to tech experts, a virus is a malicious program which executes various damaging actions without the user's participation. The best example of a computer virus is a Trojan horse^[3] which executes its code secretly when a victim opens a malicious attachment or accesses an infectious hyperlink and remains in various harmful features such as data theft, injection of other malware, software crashes and disabling programs, etc.

Specialists believe that the “good” malware might also carry bugs

Computer experts from Bitdefender^[4] found another reason why creating defense malware might not be a good idea at all. Specialists have doubts about the program's safety as the malware itself can definitely include some flaws or bugs.^[5] The biggest concern is that the “good” virus might cause harm to the targeted system as regular malware does.

Bitdefender finds the defense virus idea very doubtful: if a bug from the malware appears on the system, updates for the big fix might not be released that fast so no harm would be done. Releasing a defense computer virus is a big risk which is supposedly not worth taking as the consequences might be even worse than expected.

Rather than releasing such program, experts believe that creating strong anti-malware and antivirus software would be enough. However, every user needs to put his own effort in performing safety measures. It does not mind what kind of defense programs the person will run if he still will keep on acting carelessly.