Because keeping up-to-date with the latest security patches 2
or patches at all, 3
for all your different types of software 4
is a huge hassle, we want to automate it. 5
Also if we do automate it, it means we're not going to forget, 6
and it's more likely those patches are applied, 7
and it's more likely that we're going to be safe from attacks. 8
There is one main application that I recommend for doing this, 9
and that is Secunia Personal Software Inspector or PSI. 10
And it's also free. 11
It's maintained by this company and they are a security company 12
and therefore it has a strong focus on updates where security matters most. 13
The update data has to be updated to be useful and 14
it's maintained by Secunia. 15
And they do quite a good job of doing that 16
but they don't cover all software, 17
but they do cover all of the software 18
that is important for security. 19
If you just simply go to the website, you're going to 20
have to fill in your details here, 21
download, you’ll get the executable. 22
If you run this, 23
select your language, Next, accept the license. 24
Now you have the choice of how you want this to be set. 25
You can set it to “Update programs automatically”, 26
which I recommend for you when it's all set up, 27
definitely set it to that. 28
But for when you first install it, 29
I recommend that you set it to “Download updates automatically”, 30
and then “Let me choose whether to update”. 31
This way you can choose 32
which software you may not want to have updated, 33
because it could be that you have some software 34
that you don't want to update it for different reasons. 35
You don't want it to start automatically 36
updating those applications because that's exactly what it’ll do 37
if you set this. 38
You may even not want it to download anything at all 39
but just check to see whether or not your software is up-to-date, 40
just for the install. 41
In fact, I'll check it to this just for the install. 42
And then do you want to launch it? Yes we do. 43
When you first start the program, it scans for software 44
looking for what is installed. 45
This can take some time, 46
especially if you've got a lot of applications, you've got a large hard drive. 47
You’ll also need a internet connection, 48
and it needs to get the latest updates with that internet connection. 49
If you don't have a connection, it may start to grumble, 50
and if it seems to have hung, just leave it, 51
it's probably just scanning to see what software you've got. 52
And you’ll find that this application 53
can become unresponsive from time to time, 54
but if you leave it, it's usually just 55
trying to do something in the background, 56
scanning your files, etc. 57
If you look here we have Settings. 58
If Detailed view isn't selected, 59
just check that check box and that will give you a better view 60
of what apps need to be updated. 61
This is the options we had while we did the install. 62
Here you can change it back to Update 63
automatically, which is recommended. 64
What you can do, so what I've done here is, 65
I've deliberately made sure that there is 66
some software that is 67
out of date. 68
If I click on here, 69
right click I can decide 70
perhaps I want to ignore updates for this program. 71
Maybe it’s some software that if I update it, 72
I have to 73
change some code that I’ve developed. 74
So you can actually ignore it and then 75
choose all the ones that you actually want to ignore, 76
and then change it to Update automatically. 77
You can show the details, 78
which doesn't really show you much more 79
than what you get from the detailed view, 80
which is the installed version. 81
Plus you get the location of where the file is. 82
Very useful, if you go on More information 83
it's going to launch your browser 84
and it's going to give you information 85
about the patch and the vulnerability. 86
And you can see here, highly critical. 87
So that would be one that you would probably want to install 88
because again iTunes is a 89
application that directly interfaces with the internet so 90
it's particularly sensitive to needing to be updated. 91
You can look at History and see what has been 92
already installed or updated. 93
If you have a program that you want to be monitored but it isn't here, 94
then you can request from Secunia to 95
add that, and if you're lucky they may indeed add it. 96
You can scan again. 97
You'll see it'll start to download the latest definitions 98
and it will scan your system again. 99
And like I said, this can take a little bit of time 100
if you've got a large system. 101
You can see here it gives you a rating of – 102
here is 97% for 103
how up-to-date it believes my system to be. 104
And this says “Currently updating”, 105
so 106
let's change these settings to Download. 107
And you can see here, this is doing exactly what I mentioned, 108
in that it starts to pause 109
and you're not quite sure what it's doing here, 110
it's got a little timer, but 111
what it's doing is it's updating in the background 112
and you’ll get this little timer. 113
The best thing is just to leave it, 114
let it get on with what it's doing 115
and then eventually it will come back 116
and you'll be able to use the interface again. 117
Now, there are alternative tools and to this one, 118
to automate patching. 119
There is something called Appupdater, 120
there is FileHippo App Manager, 121
there's Ninite, 122
there’s Software Informer Client, 123
there's Software Update Monitor or SUMo, 124
but make sure you get the lite version of that because the non-lite version 125
comes with all the adware and bloatware. 126
There is Heimdal Free. 127
Not sure if I'm saying that correctly. 128
That comes from a security company, so that has a security focus 129
so that's worth a look. 130
You can also do automated driver updates 131
and there's a few pieces of software that do that. 132
Dumo is one example. 133
If you have your machine switched off any length of time, 134
or you're disconnected from the internet for any length of time, 135
before you start using your browser, or going on to the internet, 136
you need to check to see if you're up to date 137
with your patches first. 138
Get your system up to date first, 139
then use your browser, 140
then use your internet. 141
And if we look here, 142
it's actually conveniently 143
auto updated it for us 144
and we're on the latest version here. 145
On History, 146
we can see the update’s been made, 147
which is brilliant. 148
Now we're at 100%.