A COMPUTER bug which targets Microsoft software brought down the IT network of a local authority yesterday.

The "worm", thought to have been developed by a rogue cyberspace fraternity, has been dubbed the Sasser bug and uses email to access systems.

Once opened on the network, it can spread quickly to other unprotected terminals without the user doing anything.

It's thought the bug got into North Yorkshire County Council's network via email sent to the press office, scrambling communications and spreading to half a dozen other computers before it was detected.

The authority immediately shut down all its computer systems to isolate the "worm" before launching a procedure to repair the damage.

"The problem is that the council has grown in such a way that different departments use different systems," said spokesman, Tony Webster. "At the moment, we are in the process of rolling out a standardised computer desktop across the authority which should limit the chances of this sort of thing happening again.

"Hopefully, the process will be complete in a couple of months when we will be better equipped to guard against future attacks." The Sasser bug targets Microsoft's Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP software in particular.

North Yorkshire County Council staff found they were unable to open emails, desktop icons either vanished or became corrupted while the worm is also known to have slowed computers' processing speed and even caused systems to crash.

Coastguard stations around the UK were also affected by the same bug on Tuesday, although the systems affected were used largely for administration rather than life-saving operations.