Should we be thinking of the virus as being malicious or just a virus that happened because of some error either by operators, the system or some other entity? If it is malicious then presumably we need to find where it originates from. Who or what input the virus if it was not an accident. Also if malicious, what was the motive behind the creation of a virus?
Why would it be important or matter enough to some one or something to wipe out or erase ‘the Gold’. That’s potentially a catastrophic event if that happened. It also knew to target or search for ‘the Gold’ origin. Clearly the intent would have been a very evil act, if it had not been stopped. If the virus had not been stopped what would have been the deadly outcome? What would there be to gain from such an act? Answers or theories behind those kind of questions might uncover difficult truths system has to face up to.
Did the system wrong someone or something and the virus is some kind of revenge for something? There have been some terrible acts that have occurred in the Lore of the story. thinking for example of the First Spawn. Perhaps there is something in the terrible history of the Lore that might give us some clues about a possible motive for creating a virus and why.
Edit: @the_poet made Some very interesting observations in this thread which could also suggest a line of questioning or research.