Here are some of the news highlights in the world of computer bugs and security from last week.

On Tuesday, January 13, Microsoft continued its recent practice or releasing all its security bulletins for the month. There were three — only one of which directly affects consumers:

"The most wide-ranging problem in January's batch release of security bulletins from Microsoft concerns a buffer overflow in Microsoft Data Access Components 2.5 through 2.8. While most people think they are unaffected, these components are included in Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, as well as Microsoft SQL Server 2000. While this vulnerability may allow an attacker to run their own code on your computer, there are a number of factors that limit the scope of the vulnerability. See the details and get the patch at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms04-003.asp."

Microsoft also announced that they would extend the support period for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows ME until June 30, 2006. Support for those products was supposed to have ended this month, but Microsoft changed its mind and will continue to supply security and bug fixes for those versions of Windows.

There was also this announcement from Symantec:

"If you have a Symantec product that uses LiveUpdate (such as Norton AntiVirus) you may have run into problems starting on 1/7/2004. According to Symantec if you suddenly notice your computer slowing down, and that Microsoft Word or Excel won't start, it may be due to issues involving security verification. In particular, they say that VeriSign (who handles the security certificate verification) suddenly started receiving a large number of requests for a certificate revocation list (CRL) starting on January 7-8, 2004. At this point, details are sketchy, but you may want to keep an eye on this page (really long URL) for later developments."

Finally, here's a bug you won't have to worry about till next January:

"According to Palm, you may have problems turning off Tungsten T3 or E handheld computers in the first week in January. You may turn the power off, but it comes back on after a few seconds. Palm says this may be due to a birthday reminder that spans the end of the year. If you have a birthday reminder set to go off seven days before a birthday, for instance, and the birthday is January 5, you may not be able to power off for those first five days in January. The easiest workaround is to change the reminder time so that it doesn't span the year change."

There's more coverage of computer bugs and fixes at the BugBlog.