New threat center for IM-borne viruses

If you haven't already, tell all instant-messagers at your house to look out for IM-borne viruses. They're now a big enough threat to family PC security to have their own threat center (a clearinghouse where "a consortium of instant-message and antivirus-software companies ... gather and disseminate intelligence on the viruses"), the Wall Street Journal reports. What should your kids know? To be suspicious of anything that a stranger tells them to download, click on, view, or listen to (especially if it has a .exe extension), but also that their friends send them, because these viruses utilize buddy lists' screennames to self-propagate. Here's an example of a mild virus that went around the popular MSN Messenger early this year, as reported by CNET (see also my "Instant-messaging risks & tips").