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While technically that's true ... it's a lot harder to do on the System i than it is on a PC.
Some parts are harder, others are easier. The ability to insert your program as a CPP, VCP, etc for *CMD objects on the system, plus the ability to arbitrarily assign exit programs where nobody ever sees them run, makes it very easy to write a virus that spreads on the system itself. Much easier than it is on Windows.
Making it spread from system to system, however, is more difficult. But certainly not impossible. You're correct that you can't simply transfer a *PGM object from one system to another, you have to stick it in a save file and restore that save file, etc. However, nothing stops you from simply writing a PASE program. Or QShell script. Or Java class object. Or REXX procedure. Or OCL procedure. Anything that executes from a normal stream file or file member (instead of a *PGM object) can be freely distributed this way.
Naturally, those things I listed above can be used to create native *PGM objects, if so desired.
There are two big reasons that viruses are easy to spread on Windows systems. The first one is that a buffer overflow can be used to generate code that will actually be executed. (You can't do that on i5/OS, and that's a good thing.) The other reason is that you can e-mail a user just about anything, and the user will double-click it, letting the OS find the appropriate program, and run it automatically. Since hardly anyone reads e-mail on i5/OS, and those that do are willing to save the attachment to disk, then run it manually, there's far less likelihood of it executing code...
But, still... You could write a virus that would search out other systems on the Internet, and using SMB (/QNTC) could try to insert your program. Your program could then create some *PGM objects that inserted themselves into the system all over the place, and continued to use /QNTC to spread across the Internet... all very possible.
Fortunately, there's a much higher level of ethics in the i5/OS community.
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