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Microsoft is taking a leaf out of the virus writers' handbook, hoping to use friendly "worms" to distribute software patches surreptitiously.

Like the malicious worms that spread from computer to computer by self-replicating and automatically seeking out new computers to infect, the friendly worms will be used to distribute updates to users without forcing them to download anything from a central server.

The research is being spearheaded by a team from Microsoft Research in Britain, and opens up the possibility of worm races between virus writers and the software companies to see who can reach vulnerable machines faster.

Unlike malicious worms seek to exploit vulnerabilities in operating systems, the friendly worms would seek to patch those vulnerabilities before the computer is attacked.

Milan Vojnovic, who is part of the research team, told New Scientist his friendly worms would be more efficient than malicious worms because they were smarter at seeking out vulnerable, unpatched machines. They could then "infect" a network of computers using the smallest number of probes.

Vojnovic said his worms were capable of learning from past experience.

The worm starts by randomly probing for an uninfected host and then targets other computers on the same network. If it fails to find a cluster of uninfected hosts it changes its strategy in order to maximise the number of computers it can patch.

"After it fails to reach new uninfected hosts a fixed number of times in a row, say 10, it moves on to find new groups using random sampling," Vojnovic told New Scientist.

The Microsoft research will be presented at the 27th Conference on Computer Communications in the United States in April.

According to a recently released Sophos Security Threat Report, the "Storm" worm was 2007's most disruptive computer threat, with about 50,000 variants seen over the course of the year.

The worm spread via links inside spam emails disguised as news alerts, electronic greeting cards and videos.

The US presidential primaries have become the latest lure for spreading malware as attackers use 'videos' of candidates to tempt users into downloading Trojan applications.

Researchers at Symantec and McAfee reported that malware distributors are using presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as bait for a malicious file download.

Symantec warned of an attack which uses spam emails to spread a 'video' of Clinton. A file named 'mpg.exe' downloads another Trojan application which infects the user's system.

Researchers at McAfee noted a similar attack which uses links hidden inside emails again promising a video of Clinton but redirecting to a page hosted on Google ads.

That page then redirects to another site which attempts to download and install a Trojan application.

The attacks have surfaced eight days after Super Tuesday on which a number of large states cast their votes for each party's presidential candidate.

"It is surprising that we did not see more of this attack yesterday, one week after Super Tuesday," said McAfee researcher Alex Hinchliffe in company blog.

McAfee noted that the Clinton emails are similar to a series of attacks claiming to offer videos of Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and Britney Spears.

"We urge you to be vigilant and keep your anti-spam and anti-malware protection up to date," wrote Hinchliffe. "Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it normally is."