Paul Roberts

Open source database software maker MySQL AB warned its users to tighten security late last week, after news broke about a new Internet worm that targets the popular relational database, according to a company executive. The company is looking at making bigger changes to harden its product against future attacks, the executive said.

Two new versions of the Bagle e-mail worm are spreading on the Internet and through peer to peer (P-to-P) file-sharing networks, according to warnings issued on Thursday by antivirus software companies. The latest Bagle variants, Bagle.AX and Bagle.AY, are the 50th and 51st versions of the original Bagle worm, which appeared in January 2004. Like the first Bagle, sometimes spelled "Beagle," versions AX and AY spread in executable files and infect machines running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, antivirus companies said.

Computer security experts remembered the MyDoom e-mail worm Wednesday, one year after it tore through the Internet, deluged e-mail systems with infected messages and set records for infecting vulnerable computer systems. The new worm caused headaches for network administrators, downed

Reports of online identity theft scams known as "phishing" attacks were up again in December, when more than 1,700 active phishing Web sites were reported, a 10 percent jump from the previous month, according to data released Thursday by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).

Companies that make identity management software continue to be hot commodities in 2005, as they were in 2004, as BMC Software Inc. announced plans to acquire a company that makes user identity management and technology.

The stocks of major antivirus software vendors were trading lower Thursday, after Microsoft Corp. announced the release of beta antispyware technology it bought in December and said it would begin giving away an improved tool to remove worms and viruses from its customers' computers.

Two new versions of a computer virus that affects mobile phones were discovered in late December with new features that allow them to spread more quickly between vulnerable devices, according to antivirus company F-Secure Corp.

Antivirus companies are warning Internet users about a fast-spreading new worm that infects Web servers running a popular package of online bulletin board software, and uses the Google search engine to find vulnerable servers to infect.