for those of you AIMer's out there!!!! There's a worm that can infect your machine with a rootkit through AIM. if you don't know what a rootkit is, it's a hacker application that will allow them to takeover your machine and circumvent any form of protection that you have implemented on your machine - very very dangerous. if you receive a random link through IM through ANYONE you know, confirm first that they intended to send you the link!!!!
from Yahoo! News....

The worm works by targeting AIM users, who might get what appears to be a message from someone on a buddy list asking them to click on a link in the message. If they comply, the virus is downloaded to the machine.
Disturbing Trend
The worm was detected in a "honey pot" machine set up by FaceTime to track malware on instant-messaging networks and Web sites for malicious code and hazardous URLs.
FaceTime indicated that all AIM users are at risk.
"This is part of a disturbing trend, and attacks based on instant-messaging clients will only get worse over time," Wells said.