The fact that the worm does not attempt to get across virtual private networks or target specific machines also blunts its potency, observed Russ Cooper, editor of the NTBugtraq mailing list and a senior scientist at Cybertrust Inc. in Herndon, Va.

"There's nothing special about the worm" that should pose a problem for enterprises, he said.

According to Joe Stewart, senior security researcher at Lurhq, there is also no indication that the worm is spreading rapidly in the wild as originally feared. The number of computers infected worldwide by the worm is only around 300,000 or so, he said.

But the fact that vendors once again have used so many different names for the same worm highlights the need for more standard virus-identifying conventions, analysts said.

Without them, "it is not clear if vendors are talking about the same issues." Cooper said. "Being able to know that your vendor is picking up a virus that another vendor is calling something else can be troublesome."