E-Mail Passwords Exposed

Microsoft Corp. acknowledged Thursday a bug in its new Internet chat software that permits co-workers and others to see a person’s e-mail password. It promised to fix it by week’s end. The glitch in the company’s new MSN Messenger software means that others who have access to a person’s computer could impersonate that person to read and even send e-mail using his “Hotmail” account without anyone’s knowledge. Microsoft, whose software runs most of the world’s personal computers, said it was made aware of the bug earlier this week.