WASHINGTON — In a show of force against an extremely virulent Internet attack, government and private officials today will implore worldwide organizations to protect themselves from the “Code Red” worm.

        Representatives from the White House, FBI, Microsoft and other organizations have decided to take the step because of one of the largest-ever dangers to the Internet. The worm, similar to a virus, could cause widespread slowdowns and sporadic outages.

        “The Internet has become indispensable to our national security and economic well-being,” said Ron Dick, head of the National Infrastructure Protection Center, an arm of the FBI. “Worms like Code Red pose a distinct threat to the Internet.”

        Along with posting various warnings on their Web sites, government officials and representatives from Microsoft planned a news conference this afternoon to publicize their efforts.

        While the infection rate is unknown, it is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers. In just the first nine hours of its July 19 outbreak, it infected more than 250,000 systems.

        The government-funded Computer Emergency Response Team said the worm is predicted to start spreading again at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

        The officials are frustrated that even though a software inoculation was made available more than a month before the worm's first attack, many computers are still defenseless. The patch, which will protect computers, can be found on Microsoft's Web site.

        Code Red exploits a flaw discovered in June in Microsoft's Internet Information Services software used on Internet servers. It is found in Windows' NT and 2000 operating systems.

        Only computers set to use English will have their Web pages defaced and users of Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me are not affected.

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