Importance of Automatic Updates for Windows

Importance of Automatic Updates for Windows

This week’s blog I wanted to talk a little bit about the importance of automatic updates for Windows systems.  Operating systems in general, inherently come with vulnerabilities which can be exploited.  Let’s face it, nothing is perfect and the code to an OS is no exception.  With the thousands of lines of code, there’s sure to be security issues.  For this reason, safeguards are put into place to help combat vulnerabilities as they are found and hopefully before they are exploited to the point where someone can use them to cause serious damage. 

Windows automatic updates can help secure your operating system by automatically loading and installing the required patch or patches needed to remove the vulnerability or at least mitigate it.  For example, “Nineteen privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer.  An attacker who successfully exploited the most severe of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, and Internet Explorer 10 on Windows clients.  Most customers have automatic updating enabled and will not need to take any action because this security update will be downloaded and installed automatically”, according to Security Tech Center (June, 2013).

 

From the example it should be clear of the importance of utilizing automatic updates.  The security update, MS13-047 was able to resolve 19 vulnerabilities that could potentially provide an attacker the opportunity and capability to take control of a system.  This control could lead to such things as identify theft, be used as a netbot for denial of service, or some other form of malicious intent.

Keep in mind though; some patches can cause other type of issues like certain programs not to work correctly.  For this reason, it should be stated that before installing patches, other than critical ones, the patch or patches should be reviewed to see if may cause any other types of complications.  

Bottom line is, whenever that little window pops up and states updates are available or installed and your computer needs to be restarted, don’t ignore it.  Stop and think of the 5 minutes it may take and reboot the system quickly as you’re able.  It’s a small task to do to protect your system, your network and even your identity.

 

Reference:

 

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS13-047 – Critical Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2838727), version 1.0, June 2013.  Retrieved from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/MS13-047