Alert: Bugbear Virus

Bugbear, a dangerous new computer virus discovered in late September, is proliferating rapidly, threatening to become the most widespread and destructive virus ever. Advice on protecting your systems against Bugbear is available, along with more general antivirus advice.

Like Klez and the other viruses that have caused enormous financial damage to tens of millions of computer users, Bugbear takes advantage of defects in Microsoft products. Bill Gates has publicly admitted that Microsoft's approach to security has been seriously flawed, and has pledged to turn his company around. We hope that Mr. Gates follows through with his pledge, but his company's track record so far does not inspire excessive confidence. Purchasers of computer software would be well advised to take the company's long history of security weaknesses into account when choosing among vendors.