An 18-year-old teenager, suspected of creating the "Sasser" computer virus that infected millions of computers all over the world, has been arrested in northern Germany, police said Saturday.

The suspect, a high school student living near the northern town of Rotenburg an der Wuemme, was detained on Friday, police said.

The Sasser worm broke out on May 1 and may have affected over 18 million computers worldwide in less than one week.

The worm attacks through a flaw in Microsoft's recent versions of Windows operating systems including Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. Infected computers are forced into an unstoppable pattern of shutting down and rebooting, but no lasting harm to computers has been found yet.

The Sasser is the third major internet virus this year after Myddom. A in January and Bagle. B in February.