Updating Acrobat, Flash, QuickTime, etc.
Posted by ThePaladin on October 22nd, 2008
Greetings Citizens of the Realm!
It used to be that protecting your computer and data was a much simpler affair. Way back many years ago, most people (the Paladin included) figured that it was impossible to embed misbehaved software into anything other than a program.
For DOS/Windows users, this meant looking at only .COM and .EXE files. Files that contained executable code (also known as “executable programs”). My how the landscape has changed!
Today we have all sorts of add-ons to browsers, as well as utility software, that would at first glance appear to be immune to carrying viruses and such.
No one would have thought many years ago that a word processor or spreadsheet could contain a virus. These files contained data, and thus, how could they possibly cause harm to your computer?
But of course, as user’s needs increased, scripting languages were added to these programs, which were capable of being misused by the “bad guys” that we like to call the “Anti-Programmers.” In some cases, some brilliant (but demented) individuals discovered how to compromise your computer using files that did not even contain scripting languages!
The point to all of this is that in addition to keeping your operating system up to date with respect to patches and updates, it is also vitally important to keep your browser plugins and third party utility programs up to date as well.
Some programs you might not think to keep updated/patched are:
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe Flash (Formerly Macromedia Flash)
- Any Image/Photo Processing Software
This is not to say that you have to run right out and spend tons of cash to upgrade to the latest and greatest versions of these programs, but it would be wise to ensure that you have all of your software patched and updated (we are talking about the free updates here) on a routine basis. While this will take some discipline and effort on your part, constant vigilance will pay dividends in the long run.
So take a moments today to review the software on your computer and see which programs have updates and patches you can quickly and easily apply. The data you save may just be your own!