Security Wizard: how to keep your system up-to-date

One of the first rules of computer security is to keep the Windows operating system and most vulnerable applications up to date. If you don't, hackers may be able to exploit flaws in older versions of these programs that could enable them to get access to your private information or even take control of your computer.

The most vulnerable applications include:

  • Windows itself
  • Browsers (eg. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome),
  • PDF-readers (eg. Adobe Reader, Foxit reader),
  •  Media players (eg. Windows media player, Realplayer, Quicktime, Adobe flash player, Adobe shockwave player),
  • Java runtime environment,
  • Office software (eg. Microsoft Office, Open Office)
  • Email software (eg. Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird),
  • Instant messengers (eg. Windows Live Messenger),
  • P2P clients (eg. Vuze, µTorrent) and
  • Download managers (eg. Free download manager).

The easist way to check if you need to update your Windows system or installed software is to use the online service Secunia software inspector (http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/online/). It scans your system for most common potentionally vulnerable applications, and informs if they need to be updated. It also includes direct download links in most cases. To use Secunia's service you need to have Java runtime environment installed.

F-secure health check (http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/onlineservices/fshc/front.html) is another option for checking if your system needs updating. It works only with Internet Explorer, but scans a wider selection of software than Secunia software inspector. Not every software flagged by this service present a real threat to your security, but of course it makes no harm to update all of them, if possible.

Most Microsoft-related updates (eg. Windows, Office 2003/XP/2007) can be checked and updated at Microsoft's own service Microsoft Update (http://update.microsoft.com/). It is also the easist way to get these updates as each of them needs not to be downloaded separately. Unfortunately not all still used applications are supported, Office 2000 users, eg, have to search updates from a separate service, Office update (http://office.microsoft.com/).

Finally notice, that in addition to online services, there are several programs, that can be installed to ones own machine. See eg. (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-software-update-monitor.htm ) and (http://technet.microsoft.com/fi-fi/security/cc184924%28en-us%29.aspx).