I'm pretty sure that attack you describe is mentioned in literature as essentially undefeatable. I really wish I could remember exactly what the name of it was; the gist is, there has to be a first compiler somewhere. If at any point in the chain, the compiler is infected with a self-propagating virus that hides itself in the byte code of the binary, it can ensure that the exploit is in every future version of the compiler.
I may be remembering the details a bit wrong, but it was a good read.
I may be remembering the details a bit wrong, but it was a good read.