• Did You Install Your Updates This Month?

Did you know that Microsoft offers monetary rewards to people who find exploits in their software and report them back to Microsoft instead of releasing them to the hacker community?  Here’s a Reuters article about a security expert who received over $100,000 from Microsoft after identifying “new exploitation techniques” in Windows.

Microsoft unveiled the reward programs four months ago to bolster efforts to prevent sophisticated attackers from subverting new security technologies in its software, which runs on the vast majority of the world’s personal computers. – Reuters.com

Read more about it on ZDNEt as well:  Microsoft awards $100,000 to researcher for attack technique

This is why it’s so important to download the updates when you’re notified to do so.  Don’t just keep clicking that ‘postpone’ button; there could be real security issues that the patches can fix.  Read more information about the patches that Microsoft released on this past Tuesday, also known as Patch Tuesday (always the second Tuesday of the month).  These fix vulnerabilities in MS Word, Internet Explorer, Silverlight, and more.  It’s not just your Windows updates that are important.  Adobe also released an update on Tuesday that patches a critical flaw in Reader and Acrobat.

Adobe is not giving specific information about the vulnerability other than that it is related to JavaScript security controls. – ZDNet.com

So keep an eye on your taskbar to see when your update alerts pop up.  And of course, if you have questions about them or want to make sure you’re up-to-date, call us at 570-408-9888!