Especially if you are a user of one of the various flavors of the Microsoft Windows operating system, one of the most important things you need to do with respect to protecting your computer and its data is stay up to date on software updates.

This includes your operating system (Windows has a nice auto-update feature), your email software, your web browser, etc.

Why?

Because over time, the “bad guys” (we like to call them the “anti-programmers” on this site) learn about weaknesses and vulnerabilities in existing software and then begin to exploit them in order to compromise your computer and its data. Compromising your computer and its data can be anything from changing settings to destroying data to using your computer to perform insidious acts without your knowledge!

As software publishers discover these vulnerabilities they correct them (”plug the holes”, as it were) as quickly as possible. However, these fixes are of no use to you if you do not keep up with updating your software!

Now, sad to say, keeping up to date with software updates is not without its own risks. Sometimes a new update will cause parts of the software you were using to stop working in the manner in which you expected. This can be from the accidental introduction of a new bug, a necessity in order to address the vulnerability, or sometimes it is a choice on the part of the software creator to force their customers down a given product path.

When you weigh it all out, though, the threat from NOT updating your software is usually far worse than from applying the updates.

Many studies have shown that often times computers that are infected or otherwise compromised could have prevented the security breach if they had simply stayed up to date with their software security updates.

Updates versus Upgrades

There can be confusion between the terms “update” and “upgrade.” In fact, the Paladin has seen companies and professionals use the terms interchangeably at times…but in reality they are not the same.

An update typically refers to a new release of a software product that contains very minor changes. Often times bugs are fixed and/or security vulnerabilities are removed. It is rare that new functionality is included, though sometimes support for new hardware is added. For example, an update to CD writing (burning) software might add the ability to write CDs on a device that was not previously supported.

A security update or critical update refers to a new release of a software product that contains a fix that addresses a known vulnerability in the software. Often times this vulnerability was recently discovered or reported to the software vendor and represents a serious threat to your computer and its data. It may also mean that the software vendor has knowledge of a particular virus or other malicious software already out on the internet that could take advantage of the discovered weakness. As you can probably guess, security/critical updates should be applied immediately!