The Importance of keeping your software updated
As cyber attacks and malicious software and virus have become more commonplace, it’s important to keep your systems protected. Outdated software such as adobe flash can lead to vulnerabilities in your system and risk your all important data. Therefore it’s incredibly important in this day and age to audit and monitor your systems closely to see what can possibly be at risk.
Ensuring Software is up to date
In order to ensure that your systems are as secure as possible, its important to have policies in place. For instance many employees or even home users may have the temptation to stave off updates on their machines or servers for periods of time. This ultimately puts you at risk to a new virus or exploit that may have been potentially patched, but you simple weren’t up to date. However it doesn’t need to be something as core as your Windows, but can be something as simple as Adobe Flash. A recent emergency patch from Adobe http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35783558 clearly displays the potential risk of what can happen to out of date systems. Therefore it’s imperative that you have policies in place that ensure that PC’s are updated on a daily basis to minimise the risk to the business, and ensure things remain fully functional.
However simply patching your existing systems is not enough to ensure it’s secure as possible. Making sure you regularly purchase or upgrade to newer versions is also key. As software gets older, more exploits or weaknesses will gradually be found as technology moves forward. Therefore ensuring you upgrade to the newest version of your software, e.g. from office 2013 to 2016, will ensure that you have the latest and most secure software available.
Knowing what’s installed
One thing some businesses don’t do enough is full audits or a management program as to what’s installed on each machine. Policies should be in place to prohibit personal programs from users being placed on the machine to minimise the threat of downloading malicious software. However there are cases of some programs being installed to serve a singular purpose, that once fulfilled is forgotten about. These programs that no longer serve a purpose are left and not updated, and can present a possible loophole into your systems. This can be seen in the most recent issue of Adobe flash, where businesses are now seeking to purge it from their business as it is seen as a potential threat. Therefore is important to set in place policies to monitor and audit what software is on each machine and what could present a possible risk in the future.
Testing the security of the business
If you are worried about possible security threats with regards to your systems, or you want to know how secure you’ve made your system then its best to contact a Penetration testing organisation. Penetration testers are capable of using state of the art tools to essentially hack your systems under pre-set conditions set by you. What this can provide you is deep insight into what could potentially happen to your system, and show improvements that you could be making as a business. This can cover your software, hardware, network and security policies in the workplace. For many business’s it is a real eye opener to the dangers that could be potentially facing their business, and is key in the fight against cyber attacks of the future.
If you want to know more about how to keep your systems secure, or are looking to further inquire into penetration testing then why not contact us? Our professional team is available from 8:30 – 17:30 and would be more than happy to hear from you!