The worm--dubbed Bagle-A--carries an expiration date, possibly indicating that more robust versions of the worm could be slated for release soon, said Daniel Zatz, security director for Computer Associates Australia.

While Bagle-A is already successful--responsible for an 80 percent increase in queries to CA's help desk and in virus submissions to rival computer security company Sophos--the current version of the worm contains bugs, Zatz said.

Comparing Bagle to the infamous Sobig virus that flooded global e-mail networks last year, Zatz said he fears that a more virulent version of the new worm could appear soon.

"One of our biggest concern is that if we look back a year ago at the Sobig variants, they all had drop-dead dates, and every time one hit that drop-dead date a new variant came out--a new and improved variant of it," Zatz said.

By Andrew Colley at ZDNet.

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