Santa worm in IM

It's a sad day when we have to tell our kids to be very wary of any instant message about Santa Claus! You can tell them they're too smart to fall for this little social-engineering trick: the "IM.GiftCom.All" worm that's spreading through the AIM and MSN and Yahoo Messenger networks. CNET reports that this worm too will look like it's coming from someone on their buddy list, but - when clicked on - it installs a "rootkit" that spreads by sending itself to all the contacts of IM-ers who've clicked. "A rootkit is a tool designed to go undetected by the security software used to lock down control of a computer after an initial hack." It needs to be drilled into everybody's head not to click on anything in a message (a link, a file, etc.) before seeing if the person who *seems* to have sent it actually did! (See also "Tips from a tech-savvy dad: IM precautions.")