NEW YORK (AP) — New warnings are emerging of a security flaw known as the "Bash" bug, which cyber experts say may pose a serious threat to computers using Unix-based operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X.

The Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued a warning about the vulnerability this week. Experts are divided over whether the bug could pose a bigger threat than the "Heartbleed" computer security flaw discovered earlier this year.

Computer security firm Rapid7 said that while the vulnerability "looks pretty awful at first glance," hackers will not be able to exploit most systems running the affected Bash software.

Rapid7 spokeswoman Jen Ellis says a perfect set of circumstances would need to occur for an attack to work. The software does not run on Windows computers.