Hi All,
Apart from Windows Update notifications, which are of course VERY IMPORTANT to keep up to date with,are you constantly getting reminders about the lastest updates/patches for Adobe, Java, Flash Player, plug-ins ect, and a host of other software that you may have installed on your PC? It can be all too easy to pass this over and promise yourself that you will do it later only to find that you are too late, now you find you are infected with some nasty or other lurking on your system.
Keeping all of these up to date is just as important as Windows, as they too are prime targets for hackers/crooks who are constantly exploiting the vulnerabilities of out of date/unpatched versions of these installations also.
A neat little application to help overcome this is Secunia Personal Software Inspector which is available from their site at this link:
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/. It is a free download and what it does is automatically scan your system for out of date/outdated software and warns you of your out of date software and then provides a solution by way of clicking a link on the page to download the latest version of the software that poses a threat to your system. It runs in the background but does not impose a particularly big footprint on your system.It also has a nice little graph, with other datd/information too.
This is a screenshot of your initial page [Simple View 3 Tabs].
......And this is a shot of the [Advanced View 9 tabs]for the more technical among you giving a more in depth view. Again with plenty of information.
Here is a direct quote from the site
'QUOTE'The Secunia PSI is a FREE security tool designed to detect vulnerable and out-dated programs and plug-ins which expose your PC to attacks. Attacks exploiting vulnerable programs and plug-ins are rarely blocked by traditional anti-virus and are therefore increasingly "popular" among criminals.
The only solution to block these kind of attacks is to apply security updates, commonly referred to as patches. Patches are offered free-of-charge by most software vendors, however, finding all these patches is a tedious and time consuming task. Secunia PSI automates this and alerts you when your programs and plug-ins require updating to stay secure. 'UNQUOTE'Cheers, Hope you find this helpful,
ticker.
