What’s With All These Updates, Anyway?
If you use a computer with any sort of regularity, you’re probably bombarded weekly with various updates on your computer. Windows, Java, Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, IBM, Apple, etc. The list of things residing in your computer that require updates is nearly endless. And you may be asking yourself just what is so important about these updates and why do they seem so frequent? The first and most important reason for frequent updates is that they close security vulnerabilities that have been discovered since the program in question has been released. This reduces your computer’s vulnerability and thus lowers your risk of being hacked. For example, the Conficker worm (which was first discovered in November 2008 and received much publicity), wreaked global-wide havoc by taking advantage of security loopholes in Microsoft network services. Roughly a week before the virus went live, a patch had been released to close those very loopholes. However, most people around the planet don’t stay cur