WORM TURNS OUT TO BE DOG

Beagle has little impact in U.S.

ATLANTA - A computer worm called Beagle that may have been createdby spammers to sniff out new e-mail addresses began to fizzle as ithit the United States on Tuesday.

But it had a frightening start as it spread quickly through Asia,Australia and Europe on Monday. That created widespread publicity forthe worm, also called Bagle. Ironically, what may have crippled thelatest worm was its fame. The advance warning let both anti-virussoftware makers and businesses in the United States prepare.

"It started fast, so people were very concerned and anti-virussoftware was updated quickly," said Carey Nachenberg, chieftechnology architect at Symantec, one of the country's largestmanufacturers of anti-virus software.

Because of that warning, the worm caused no problems at Atlanta-based EarthLink, the nation's third-largest Internet serviceprovider.

"We are always checking the warnings for a new virus or worm, anddoing that gives us the opportunity to be prepared for it," said DaveBlumenthal, an EarthLink spokesman. "So far, we haven't seen much, ifany, activity from it."

The worm is similar to an earlier worm called SoBig. SoBig wasconsiderably more dangerous, said Neel Mehta, a computer scientistwith Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems.

He said Bagle, like SoBig, arrives as an e-mail attachment.