CAMBRIDGE, UK — Even the most ignorant computer user knows that “worms” are bad things to have crawling around in their operating systems, even if they don’t bother to make it difficult for them to get there. A Microsoft research team in the UK is hoping to use the power of hitherto evil computer worms in order to accomplish good, via a technique it is calling “information epidemics.”An information epidemic drops a powerful payload just the same as current worms, but this payload ensures that software patches are distributed more efficiently and more users have healthy and functioning systems.

As explained by New Scientist, the thinking behind this distribution method, is summed up by research lead Milan Vojnović: the current method of requiring users to download patches onto their systems from central servers is inefficient. By looking at how to motivate updates and other important information to behave more like worms seeking out their intended targets than library books passively waiting to be pulled, the research team can not only help companies keep the most up-to-date patches, fixes, and updates on computer systems, but also learn how to keep less benevolent computer bugs from gumming up the works.

Unlike most mal-worms, Vojnović’s team plans to create more efficient methods for exploiting the power of computer subnets, which often see self-replicating worm traffic as it blunders from computer to computer in search of uninfected prey. Vojnović’s worms will already have enough know-how about the subnet landscape to avoid areas less likely to be of use and go directly to those in need of assistance.

Unfortunately, that kind of information is uncommon, usually uncovered in the wake of a harmful worm attack or other specific incident, so Vojnović’s worms will need the ability to learn and conjecture. Instead of blindly groping around for potential hosts, the good worms will start out random, but become increasingly focused as they find friendly territory, moving to new areas after having saturated those in need of their cargo.

In addition to being quicker and more convenient than current download methods, Vojnović believes that the good worms would take pressure off of already aching server networks. “These strategies can minimize the amount of global traffic across the network,” he explained to New Scientist.

The Microsoft team isn’t the only group in search of the “perfect worm.” Georgia Tech University’s Chuanyi Ji is keen to create just such an entity in hopes of getting protective software patches onto computers ahead of the invading menace attempting to do them harm. According to Ji’s observations, invasions like that undertaken by the Blaster Worm from the there are already worms in the wild employing similar methods to those being refined by the Microsoft team, which will present its findings at the 27th Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) in Arizona in April.