Updates and patches — Logical Cybersecurity

Beginner's Guide to Privacy and Security

Best practices and recommendations on how to protect and recover from compromised accounts and computers, use real-world scenarios to detail how scams and phishing emails are used and provide best practices on how to use the internet in a more safe and secure manner to protect yourself, your family, and your clients.

A Beginner's Guide to Privacy and Security

Trying to remain safe online, practicing good security and working to keep your data private is extremely challenging. This is made even more difficult with the speed at which technology changes, vulnerabilities are discovered, and attackers change their tactics. Just when you think you have learned the right techniques to keep your data private and your devices, email, etc., secure, another breach is announced, a new vulnerability is discovered in your operating system or web browser, and/or attackers come up with another scam/trick to gain access to your devices or information...all of which are out of your control. If you aren't tech savvy, it can be even more overwhelming. Since technology and attack methods change so rapidly, there are no simple answers or steps you can take to be 100% protected. This is where we are hoping we can help by recommending steps you can take to increase the security of your accounts and devices, better protect your privacy, and be safer online. Check out our "Security 101" section for a collection of the minimum security procedures everyone should be following.

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Installing software updates and patches is extremely important and can dramatically increase your security posture. In fact, a lot of systems are compromised simply because people have not updated their operating system and/or third party software to patch vulnerabilities.

Please note, updates and patches are available and recommended for more than just operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Apple’s MacOS or iOS or Google’s Android. Updates and patches are available for 3rd party software as well such as your web browser, word processing applications, antivirus software, apps on your phone, pdf viewer, etc. It’s important to understand updates and patches aren’t just to install new features or repair bugs. One of their main functions is to remediate vulnerabilities and increase the security of the software. Updating your web browser is equally as important as updating your operating system since vulnerabilities in both are discovered all the time. These vulnerabilities are used by attackers ("hackers") to infect or gain access to your computer, phone, etc.. So, installing updates and patches are vital in closing these attack surfaces. Most security professionals and manufacturers recommend setting your software to automatically update to ensure they receive the latest update or patch as soon as it becomes available. If you do not set your software or operating system(s) to update automatically, I suggest setting a calendar reminder to check for updates based on the following time lines:

Weekly for:

Anti-virus/anti-malware software
Web browser
3rd party, non operating system, applications ("office" applications, business software, pdf readers, compression/zip applications, printer applications, imaging/video programs, etc.)

Monthly for:

Operating systems
Hardware (printers, network devices, etc.)

By the way, don't forget to update the OS on your tablets and phones as well as all the applications installed. You should get a notice when an update to the OS is ready, but if you hear/read about an update and your device hasn't alerted you, it may be necessary to initiate it manually. That's usually in settings either in about phone or the system update section. I would set the applications to update automatically, but do pay attention to any permission changes. Sometimes apps will raise permission levels after you have installed them. I'll go over app permissions in another posting, so be on the lookout for that post, but just know any changes in permissions after install should be analyzed based on any new features of the app.