"A new Internet virus has surfaced that allows hackers to steal passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information when someone merely visits an infected Web site, government computer security experts warned this week. Hundreds of Web sites have been targeted by the virus, which exploits flaws in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Internet software, according to an alert issued Thursday by the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the Department of Homeland Security. Infected sites were programmed to connect people using the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser to a Web site that contains code allowing hackers to record what users type, such as passwords and credit card and Social Security numbers. The code then e-mails that information to the anonymous attackers. CERT recommends that Explorer users consider other browsers that are not affected by the attack, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera. Mac, Linux and other non-Windows operating systems are immune from this attack."