1. Forces companies to build secure products.
2. Automatic check on the most dominant platform

Think of computers as much like living organisms. If we assume that hacks/viruses/trojans will always exist, then having constant security threats that are less malicious in nature (i.e. not Russians looking to steal millions of dollars) is useful in the same way that less malicious infections are useful to living beings:

• They keep people and animals immune systems (antivirus measures) up to date.
• The other living analogy (crowding out other viruses) doesn’t really work here.

Additionally, *early warning* viruses serve as a check on platform monoculture, forcing dominant organisms to develop some form of resistance. In the case of actual living things, the solutions (pesticides, antibiotics) have deleterious side effects of their own, possibly because they are not inherent properties of the living things themselves.