Outdated programs risky

Many programs these days need updates, not just your operating system (e.g. Windows). As an example, today's Windows Secrets points to the following common programs:

• Adobe Reader
• Macromedia Flash
• Apple Quicktime
• Sun Java
• Mozilla FireFox

Most of these programs default to checking for updates. But if you ignore the update message or if it only checks once a month, you can be way behind in plugging security holes (a.k.a. "vulnerabilities").

What can you do about that? One very big help is the free Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI). You can try it online first and download if it serves as an eye opener for you -- it did for me.

For one thing, I discovered old versions of Sun Java on my system. Any "point" version needs to be updated to its most recent one. For example, the only currently secure versions of Sun Java JRE are version 5 update 12 and version 6 Update 2 (also known as 1.5.0_12 and 1.6.0_02)