We’re now going to discuss updating or patching. 2
It's important to update all software applications, 3
firmware, operating systems, everything. 4
An update or patch is simply a fix to a bug. 5
When it's an update to a security bug, 6
it's a security update. 7
And it's the security updates that we care about most 8
in terms of security. 9
Updating your software is the most important thing 10
you can do to remain safe online. 11
If you do just one thing after this course, 12
make it applying patches and applying them promptly. 13
Updating your software is the most important thing 14
you can do to remain safe online. 15
I cannot repeat that enough. 16
Although updating software is pretty simple, 17
I'm going to go through it step-by-step deliberately 18
for those people that are listening to the course, 19
who are not familiar with each step 20
because it is so vital 21
that patching is kept up to date. 22
Everything that you need to update 23
unfortunately has different ways and different interfaces 24
for each piece of software, 25
so it's a bit of a pain to update. 26
But we'll explore some ways to actually make it a lot easier. 27
The products that need updating the most are 28
Number one, those that directly interface with the internet, 29
such as browsers like Opera, Edge, Firefox, Chrome; 30
browser extensions and plug-ins 31
like Java, Flash, Silverlight; 32
and if you use email applications like Outlook and Thunderbird, 33
those are important as these interact 34
directly with the internet. 35
They're the biggest attack vector. 36
Second on the importance list is applications that use, 37
play, view any sort of file that you download 38
from the internet, or any sort of file 39
that you get from some untrusted source. 40
So for example, Windows Media Player, 41
that plays movies, you might’ve download a movie. 42
Adobe Reader, that views PDFs, you might have downloaded a PDF. 43
Your Image viewer for JPEGs, Excel, Word, 44
these process the files they download, 45
so they can be and are attack vectors. 46
The example of macro viruses within Excel and Word. 47
And third, the operating system. 48
This is important because it maintains the core of your security 49
so that needs to be updated too. 50
There's a potential downside to updating those. 51
It’s not all great and it's not all security. 52
Sometimes, and this doesn't happen often, especially with Microsoft 53
and the big players, 54
is that the patch comes with another bug 55
which can cause functional problems. 56
So for example, you get a security update 57
to the Edge browser but then it crashes. 58
Setting your updates to just happen 59
automatically is the most secure option, 60
but you could set them to download only, 61
and you can evaluate the patch to see whether or not 62
you actually want it and I'll cover how we can do that next. 63
As you've seen already in the sections on malware, hackers, and exploits, 64
if you maintain a poor level of patching, 65
it is just a question of when you get hacked, 66
not if. 67
A friend who will remain nameless 68
came around just the other day and asked 69
what could he do to keep his laptop secure, 70
and was wondering why it was acting all strange. 71
So I had a quick look at the machine and it had't been updated since 2011. 72
I told him, “Forget setting up security, 73
you need to reinstall your operating system and start again. 74
The machine is very, very likely to have picked up 75
all sorts of undesirable passengers.” 76
So, don't let that be you.