Secunia: Nearly Every Window Machine has Unpatched App

As per Secunia ASP, it has security fixes for those computer users who downloaded and installed its Personal Software Inspector (PSI) app in the first week of January 2008.

The available data is gathered by scanning 20,009 computers in which Secunia's free software inspection tool is installed.

Alan Paller, Director of Research for the SANS Institute, known for doing independent research in Bethesda, Maryland, said that this is hard data to support the security system, as reported by SEGate on January 11, 2008. Paller also said that attackers are shifting towards applications and nobody is interested in patching them.

Secunia's data revealed that less than 5% computers that were scanned had secure software applications installed. Around 25% computers had more than five insecure applications and another 25% computers had more than 10 insecure applications installed. Around 42% of computers were recorded to have as many as 11 flawed applications. The firm scanned around 1.8 Million applications.

According to the security firm, the statistics of its services revealed that users are incompetent to update their PCs. Thomas Kristensen, Secunia's CTO, said that patching a computer has equal importance as having an anti-virus and personal firewall in the system, as reported by The register on January 9, 2008.

Jakob Balle, Secunia's Development Manager, said that the results are considered as best case scenarios; the real figures could be higher than this. The picture is darker than they showed, considering the self-selected group data represents, as reported by COMPUTERWORLD on January 9, 2008.

Thomas kristensen emphasized on the need that software vendors vigorously tell computer users about new versions. He also told that due to lack of awareness, people do not come to know about new security updates, reported InternetNews on January 10, 2008. No one is aware about Opera or OpenOffice's new update. Very rarely applications, except Firfox, pop up on the window, which tells people about there is new update and they can update it

The best way to know about new updates is to visit the advisory websites, such as Secunia's or to the sites of vendors they use, but majority of users are indifferent towards updating their computers.

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» SPAMfighter News - 1/28/2008