Seattle: A new computer worm called MyDoom, which is spreading across the Internet via spam, can potentially allow attackers to gain unauthorised access to personal computers, security experts said.

The new worm, also dubbed Novarg or Shimgapi, doesn't take advantage of any software flaws or vulnerabilities, but rather is designed to entice recipients of an e-mail to open an attached file and run programs contained in the attachment.

"Mailboxes at large corporations are infected and reporting multiple infections throughout their entire organizations," said David Perry, global education director at Trend Micro Inc.

The mass-mailing worm that arrives as an attachment with an .exe, .scr, .zip or .pif extension and can have a subject line of "test" or "status."

Users who receive the worm and simply ignore or delete it will be able to avoid any damage.