In its rush to embrace Web services, the computer industry is unknowingly inviting hackers to waltz through gaping structural holes. It's a ticking time bomb that needs to be defused.

The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) announced on Tuesday publication of its WS-I Basic Security Profile 1.0 , serving as a guide for enabling secure, interoperable Web services.

The company readies updates to its identity management server and Web services application development suite, part of a strategy to closely link both product lines.

A new company founded by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates aims to be among the first vendors to tackle Web services security.