A ROBIN HOOD STYLE WORM?
New worm seeks to heal the damage from Blaster ...

The Washington Post reports that a new worm is making the rounds ... but this one is benevolent. Seeking out infected computers, the worm then applies any one of 8 patches developed by Microsoft to cure the infection ... and it stays there until January 1, 2004 to monitor for any future attacks.

An interesting idea, to be sure. If a worm can be used to infect a computer, why can't one be used to heal those that are indeed infected? That's the basic idea behind a flu shot.

However, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. In this case, the nursing worm will sap processor power monitoring and scanning your system in an effort to protect it.

And could this healing worm simply be a ruse designed to keep us more vulnerable to attacks in the future?

Conventional wisdom tells me to take precautions to make sure NO worm hits my system. And should one get by, then I'll get my cures from reliable sources.