While most of Bermuda slept easy on Friday night, local Internet Service Providers were burning the midnight oil, on guard against the latest computer virus to sweep the world.

Yesterday, chief technology officer for Transact, Jamie Thain, said that his company thwarted a potentially debilitating computer virus ? known as the Sasser worm virus ? almost as soon as it became known.

And Logic Communications CEO Jeff Hamill said his company had also taken steps to protect its customers and that there had been no reports of the virus getting through.

The consensus from those in the Island's technology sector was that Bermuda had largely escaped the wrath of Sasser, as companies were up to date on their virus protection.

There was also a warning sent out by Microsoft a week before the virus infected more than a million computer systems around the world.

On April 22, Microsoft widely distributed its warning saying that it had become aware of a "code available on the Internet that seeks to exploit vulnerabilities addressed as part of our April 13 security updates".

At that time, Microsoft released a tool to help users search for and remove Sasser infections from their computer ? and in fact, the patch to correct the vulnerability seen in XP and 2000 versions, was released by Microsoft with their April 13 update.

The worm was said to attack these versions of Microsoft operating systems rather than spreading through e-mail messages as has been common with previous viruses ? and had reportedly caused havoc for the million home and corporate users since its circulation gained momentum on Friday.

Transact said it monitors threats to Internet users through a virus alert website which codes the worms and bugs according to their potential for damage on a global basis.

The company also reported sending out a warning e-mail to its clients saying that each Internet user should insure they had firewalls and virus scanners installed on all computers with online access.

The Sasser virus ? which news wire reports revealed had caused significant problems for some big name companies, including Delta Airlines and Goldman Sachs ? was blocked by the Transact server on Friday night.

Temporary measures were reportedly put in place by Logic to block Sasser, with Mr. Hamill saying: "We have had virtually no complaints. Some have called to ask questions but no one has said they have it (Sasser).

"Our customer care centre has been very quiet in this regard."

He added that Logic, which holds significant market share of Island Internet users, subscribes to a special anti-spamming and anti-virus service.

Digital certificate provider QuoVadis said it was also monitoring the virus and had seen "limited" activity from several variations of Sasser.

Walter Cooke, chief security officer for QuoVadis, said: "QuoVadis provides network monitoring and response, managed firewall and IDS, as well as e-mail filtering for Bermuda companies. Through these protections, we are seeing limited activity from four different Sasser variations. We remain watchful, as some worms die quickly while others suddenly spread. The best protection is to ensure that your systems are fully patched to according to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011, and that corporate firewalls are up to date."

QuoVadis said it expected that most corporate infections would come from unpatched laptops being plugged into office networks, or remote users remotely accessing corporate networks from their home computers.

The Bermuda Government also reportedly escaped the worm with e-commerce consultant Nigel Hickson telling that all systems had been automatically updated with the Microsoft patch, preventing infection by Sasser. He said he could not rule out a glitch that might let the Sasser worm through to a limited number of users, but so far that had not happened.

Mr. Hickson added that he had been speaking with Microsoft in recent days and was told that Bermuda was one of the more diligent jurisdictions in terms of putting patches in place, and being prepared for viruses.

"Microsoft is very happy with Bermuda. They said the Island has a high response rate. And the industry as a whole is getting better at detecting the sort of worm or virus that may hit. It is not an ideal situation obviously, but we are getting better at handling it," he said.

Mr. Thain said Transact continued to closely monitor the situation, although reports said spreading of the worm had slowed by yesterday: "We put searchers against Sasser Friday night, and we have been updating the virus scanner hourly.

"We did see an increase in the number of viruses making their way to the e-mail server but they are being blocked," he said, adding there had been no known reports of the virus getting through the blocks in place to protect customers.

Transact said its approach to Sasser was not typical, with the company normally limiting their precautions to a warning e-mail advising customers they should have virus protection in place. But in this case, Mr. Thain said the company stepped in as it was Friday night and they were not sure how many people would be checking their e-mails, and see the warning message. It was also thought prudent to take a pre-emptive approach as the Sasser virus was spreading quickly.

Yesterday international news reports indicted the virus, with a Russian group claiming responsibility for Sasser, was continuing to spread but had slowed.

Although Transact was able to block Sasser, Mr. Thain cautioned all Internet users to take measures to block viruses by making sure there was a firewall as well as up to date virus scanners installed.