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E-mail treachery may loom
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July 30, 1998: 3:09 p.m. ET
Bug found in Microsoft, Netscape e-mail products poses virus threat
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The latest bug that can crash your computer programs, or destroy or steal your data, isn't playing favorites.
It's been found in three of the four most popular e-mail programs from Microsoft and Netscape: Microsoft's Outlook Express and Outlook 98, and e-mail software in Netscape's Communicator Web browser.
The bug can be especially treacherous. With many viruses packed in e-mail attachments, you have to actually open the attachment before the virus can do any damage. But with the newest bug, if you just download the message, even without opening its attachment, you're caught.
Some security experts say Microsoft (MSFT) knew about the threat for a month, sounded no warning, then posted software patches -- which fix bugs -- in places most people who go to Microsoft's home page don't know about.
"When you buy their product, you have to register with it. They make you register with it in order to use the product .... They should be responsible for when there's a security-related problem for e-mailing everybody that registered that product and let them know," says Ira Winkler, president of the Information Security Advisors Group.
A Microsoft spokesman told CNNfn that the company learned of the problem last Friday and released a patch Monday that fixes the problem as it was originally reported. A company advisory, however, reports that since then its security team has found an additional problem with the bug and is working on a patch to repair that.
Since Monday, Microsoft has been posting updated advisories about the problem on the section of its Web site dedicated to security issues, the spokesman said.
To date, he added, the company has not received any calls from customers indicating that they have been affected.
Netscape (NSCP) also is alerting its customers to the problem via the Web. "The easiest, simplest way to notify customers is to put it right off of our Web site and that's what we're doing. Over eight million people a day -- different people a day -- come to our Web site. We don't think it's necessarily productive to spam people with more e-mail," said Dave Rothschild, Netscape's vice president of client products.
But his customers will have to wait for their patch. The company said one won't be ready for another week.
Consumer advocates say the software industry gets away with business practices the government wouldn't tolerate from Detroit. If automakers find a major flaw in their product, they're expected to issue a recall.
When asked recently about that suggestion, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told CNNfn: "But software doesn't kill you."
Maybe not, but it can crash your computer and kill your irreplaceable files.
-- by correspondent Steve Young and staff 
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