MadBLOG 10-10-18

Stay smart online week 8-10 October.

One of the easiest ways to stay safe online is to keep your software updated.

It’s too easy to skip the update now button when it pops up on your phone or your computer, but just taking some time to update your phone, your computer or your apps helps plug security holes in them.  It also helps add new features, and fix any bugs that cause them to crash or not work properly.

If you install updates as soon as they appear it reduces the amount of time hackers have to compromise your system.

A way to stay safe online is to make updating software a priority.  Set the time aside to update the software on your pc periodically.  Or you can even set your pc or phone to do it automatically.  Of course it can cause some software instability to install software patches that aren’t thoroughly tested but I estimate this to be between 1-5% of updates can cause system crashes or instability.

The benefits outweigh the risks of patching software.  This coupled with data backups, bare-metal recovery system disks and restore points all help.  Especially if your updates are done frequently, you may only need to do your quarterly MS updates and any 3rd party software updates, which may only be one or two at a time.