Patch your home computer
It is the application of these patches that is really quite important. Unpatched computers create one of the biggest problems on the Internet. Hackers gaining access to computer systems as well as viruses and trojan horses have spread largely because of unpatched computers. Computers have been affected around the world, costing millions and millions of dollars. This is not just a Microsoft problem; it affects Linux and Mac's as well. The “blaster worm” wreaked havoc a few years ago and was based on a known vulnerability to Windows. Although Microsoft provided a patch, most people did not apply it, and the worm spread to millions of computers throughout the world. It would have taken only a few minutes to prevent the spread. Regardless of how often and how long you connect to the Internet or whether you install and maintain antivirus software, you are still a target for attacks. At the height of the blaster worm epidemic, an unpatched and unprotected computer on the Internet became infected in an average of 15 to 20 seconds. When the worm was first released, antivirus applications had no way of catching it. While it is infinitely important to install antivirus software, monitor emails, and check attachments and downloads, that is not enough. Worms today, such as the blaster worm, are completely self-replicating. They find your computer, infect it, and then spread to other machines, without any involvement from you. And a worm can take over your computer, lock you out, and hand control of your computer to the author of the worm. Patching is easy. In fact, most modern operating systems will do most of the work for you. If you’re running a Windows computer, you can use automatic updating. If you’re running one of the more recent versions, like XP, you might have a little icon in the lower right corner of your screen, which will indicate when updates are ready. Click on the icon to update patches. If you don’t see the icon, you can access the same information by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and following the directions provided. It takes only a few minutes the first time and even less time after that. If you’re working with a Mac running OS X, open up System Preferences and click on Software Update. You can click on the Check Now button for a list of updates to install. Patching is an easy fix, and it can solve a lot of serious problems, if everyone takes just a minute or two to do it. So now that you’re in the know, share the knowledge. As a reminder, you do not need to worry about updates on ASU Windows computers. ITS uses a server to manage the care and deployment of updates to Microsoft systems on campus. Other News Stories: Commencement | Faculty and Staff Appreciation | Nursing | ROTC Commissioning | Campus Construction | Lyceum | Cullum | Sandarg Award | Physical Plant Award | ITS
May 2006 |
Computers are complicated. It may seem obvious, but many people don’t realize that their computer operating systems are made of millions of lines of programming code. And in those millions of lines of code, there is usually some “bug” that the programmer missed but that a malicious hacker can discover and use to attack the computer. When this happens, the maker of the operating system usually creates software that fixes the problem. This is called a patch.
