The Sasser computer worm, which has disrupted thousands of businesses in Asia and Europe, is set to attack computers in China on May 8, following a seven-day holiday, because some government departments may not have installed fixes.

Preventative patches available from Microsoft Corp and other software vendors may not have been installed over the break, China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Co-ordination Center said on its Web site.

The center detected about 1.3 million transmissions of the worm in China by 7 am yesterday local time.

Sasser, a piece of software which exploits flaws in the XP and 2000 versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system, has disrupted business at companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc in Hong Kong to Sampo Oyj in Finland.

Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, said about 1.5 million customers have visited its Web site to download patches to prevent infection by Sasser.

"Sasser will continue to spread for another three months at least," said Jamz Yaneza, senior anti-virus consultant with Trend Micro Inc, the world's third-largest maker of security software. The most serious viruses to date including "Sobig" and "Mydoom" are still causing infections, he said.

Sasser has mutated four times, with the latest version reported in France, the US and Canada, according to Yaneza. Infections will slow because people are starting to patch their computers to prevent Sasser's spread, he said.

"We have seen a few variations of the Sasser worm since it was first released on the Internet last Friday," said Kang Meng Chow, chief security and privacy adviser for Microsoft in the Asia-Pacific region.

Japan and other nations are likely to report increased infections as national holidays end.

Japan may have a "little bump" in Sasser infections once workers return to work today from a three-day holiday, said Vincent Gullotto, vice-president of McAfee Avert, the anti-virus laboratory of Network Associates Inc.

Many companies would have had installed security software during the holidays, Gullotto said.

The Japanese police agency on May 2 posted information about Sasser on its website, urging people to make sure their computers are secure and advising them about the software to install to prevent infection.

(China Daily May 6, 2004)