November 12, 2009 by admin
Once a week or so, depending on my schedule and the state of current events, I try to summarize the ongoing state of software updates, focusing primarily on OS, Browsers, and Adobe-related software. I missed last week, and a lot of things have piled up since the last update!
Keeping your software up to date is really important these days. There is big money in organized crime, seeking to compromise computers and gain access to your personal information – especially banking information. These malicious entities seek to gain a foothold in your computer by exploiting known vulnerabilities in popular software. As a result, something as benign as visiting a web site, opening an image, or playing a music file can lead to a compromised system, if your software has un-patched vulnerabilities.
So, keep that software up to date!
We’ll start this week with a bit of good news on the OS front, for those Apple customers who have migrated to the latest version of their OS.
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October 21, 2009 by admin
I’ve missed a few weeks with my recent travel, and boy do we have a lot to talk about with security updates this week! In fact, there is so much, I’m going to have to give it to you in condensed form, and provide the links for further reading if you’re interested. We’ve had a big Windows patch Tuesday for October (the biggest ever!), some Apple updates and some Adobe updates. Remember, keeping up to date, currently patched software is a major step in keeping your system secure and protected against malware and worse.
Let’s start with the Microsoft Windows updates.
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September 16, 2009 by admin
Snow Leopard, we hardly knew ye 
It seems Apple moved quickly to release an update to Mac OS X 10.6.1 – primarily, it would seem, to upgrade the Flash Player plug-in to the current 10.0.32.18. You may recall from last week’s security topic, that Apple’s initial release of Snow Leopard included an older version of Flash Player that was vulnerable to malicious attacks. Apple moved quickly to fix this, but with that response time, you have to wonder if this wasn’t an oversight as they were rushing to get Snow Leopard shipped. If you’ve made the move to Snow Leopard, make sure you get the update!
Apple had a busy week last week, however; with a flurry of releases.
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September 9, 2009 by admin
Earlier today we discussed software updates, and I inadvertently omitted a big one – Apple last week released a major update to its Java package for OS X 10.5 Leopard. The update, described here and available for download, addresses a rather large number of Java vulnerabilities, some of which potentially allowed unauthorized privilege elevation by executing code from a malicious website.
Note that this update does NOT apply to Snow Leopard, OS X 10.5.6.
This release updates Java SE 6 to version 1.6.0_15 (for 64-bit Intel Macs only), J2SE 5.0 to version 1.5.0_20 (all Intel and PPC Macs), and J2SE 1.4.2 to 1.4.2_22 (all Intel and PPC Macs). The updates catch up with Java fixes released by Sun in August, but apparently there are still a few pending vulnerabilities that have yet to be incorporated into the Leopard packages.
Make sure you update as soon as possible, as there are active exploits in the wild for some of these flaws!
Once a week or so, depending on my schedule and the state of current events, I try to summarize the ongoing state of software updates, focusing primarily on OS, Browsers, and Adobe-related software. I missed last week, and a lot of things have piled up since the last update!
