[转载]即时消息蠕虫的分析以及应对措施(英文资料)

信息来源：邪恶八进制信息安全团队（www.eviloctal.com）

We provide a collection of minor results on the area of Instant Messaging (IM) worms, which has received relatively little attention in the formal literature. We review selected IM worms and summarize their main characteristics, motivating a brief overview of the network formed by IM contact lists, and a discussion of theoretical consequences of worms in such networks. Existing methods to restrict an IM worm epidemic are analyzed in terms of usability and effectiveness, leading to the suggestion of two minor variations to limit IM worm propagation. We believe these variations are more user-friendly and effective than existing published methods. We also provide brief results of a three and a half year user study of IM text messaging and file transfer frequency in a moderate-size public IM network – the largest such study to date – which is of independent interest, but also supports in part the preceding claim regarding user-friendliness.