The "Code Red" worm is active and scanning the internet for computers to infect, according to a special US Federal Bureau of Investigation unit. However, it has failed to produce the global Web slowdown predicted. Microsoft Ireland said yesterday there had been no reports of Irish customers being infected with the worm during the day.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said the media coverage surrounding the worm had made people aware of the dangers of the worm and enabled them to take precautions.

Over a million users downloaded a security patch from Microsoft to ward off "Code Red", but the failure of the much-hyped worm to wreak havoc is an embarrassment for US government officials who gave dire warnings on Monday of a major assault on websites starting at 8 p.m. on Tuesday (1 a.m. yesterday Irish Time).

Similar warnings that the Y2K bug would put computers out of action on the first day of the new Millennium were not justified.

The Computer Emergency Response Team, which monitors computer hackers, worms and viruses, reported "evidence of exploitation and scanning associated with the `Code Red' worm" and "an exponential increase in the number of compromised machines" since Tuesday evening.

However, Mr Chad Dougherty, an internet security analyst with the team, said the total number of affected machines was in the tens of thousands, compared to 250,000 infected over a nine-hour period on July 19th when it first began its bombardment of websites with electronic data.

"At this time we've had several reports of sites that have experienced a limited denial of service as a result of the scanning, but no widespread reports of outages," Mr Dougherty said.

"Code Red" works by infesting server computers running Microsoft's Windows NT and 2000 operating systems and IIS software.