Bagel, the worm first spotted in Australia this past weekend, is now said to have spread fast through Asia and Europe with impact in the United States pending as early as January 20.
Symantec chief architect Carey Nachenberg, whose company makes the Norton antivirus suite, told the Associated Press home users and small businesses remain the most at risk of this new worm, whose origin hasn't yet been confirmed, because large businesses and corporations protect themselves quickly against such an e-mail invader.
But he also said it wasn't entirely certain just how long Bagel's run would last. "We could see this fizzle out in several days," he told the AP, "or we could also see a lot of people infected."
Aiming at Windows computers, Bagel arrives in an e-mail with "hi" in the subject line and "test" in the message body, with an accompanying attachment that, if opened, unleashes the worm to try sending itself to all the e-mail addresses on the user's address book.
The attachment is said to look like a Microsoft calculator, but antivirus maker Trend Micro spokesman David Perry said that shouldn't fool people. "It's clumsy," he told the AP, saying most people know enough not to open attached calculators in e-mail. "I don't get e-mails with calculators in it, do you?"
