Inc: Security Starters: Critical Patches for Your PCs

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A primer on how and how often to install security updates for those companies that don't have a large IT department.

DECEMBER 1, 2006
by Renee Oricchio

The security software's been installed. It includes anti-virus protection, a spam blocker, a firewall, a pop-up blocker and a spyware filter. Feel safe, yet? The good news: once all that's done, the system is safe -- at least for the moment. The bad news: a moment is about as long is it lasts.

Malware programmers (whom most people call “hackers”) are constantly finding vulnerabilities in all brands of security software and writing code to exploit them. Security software vendors, at the same time, are constantly writing additional code for their programs to shore up those vulnerabilities from new threats.

Those pieces of new code are called “patches” and without them your software is essentially worthless.

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