Worm for President

Many debate the quality and character of the presidential candidates on both sides of the political fence, but would we elect a worm to the White House? Perhaps, if some malware writers have their way. Antivirus vendor BitDefender reported catching a worm expounding the leadership qualities of Republican underdog Ron Paul. While Democrat and Republican candidates alike are leveraging social networking tools to fuel their "capitol" ambitions, BitDefender says the characteristics of the Paul e-mails have all the hallmarks of a spammer using a botnet to infect a wide swath of would-be voters' computers. BitDefender says this could be the first instance of someone using malware to try to influence a political campaign. While these e-mails are easy to spot, there's no guarantee a worm won't make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.