Without in-depth knowledge, security awareness or the proper tools, many programs on users' PCs are missing critical security updates and thus pose a significant risk to their online security.

Users generally don't want to, nor should they have to, be worried about security updates for the programs they have installed. Instead, users should be assisted in receiving security updates as seamlessly as possible.

There are a few textbook examples of such behaviour, such as Microsoft Update and Mozilla Firefox. Unfortunately, most other programs/vendors fail at this critical task and seem more interested in nagging users with pop-ups about the latest and greatest new features, which in turn causes users to dismiss the updates without reading about them first, and thus potentially missing out on critical security updates.

Secunia aims to solve this problem with the Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) 2.0 featuring automatic updates that are truly automatic. Truly in the sense that, if the user prefers, the Secunia PSI 2.0 can install most security updates without requiring the user to download, run, or otherwise perform manual actions to patch their PC.

Popular programs that put end-user security at risk

To highlight the problem, we have selected 3 examples of programs, which usually prompt the user to accept the update (security related or not).

NOTE: The figures below should be considered “absolute best case”, as users of the Secunia PSI are considered more security conscious then the average PC user, as well as the fact that we only look at patches automatically installed by the Secunia PSI new Auto Update feature and thus not counting the many security patches that users have chosen to manually install, based on recommendations from the Secunia PSI.

Adobe Flash Player 10.x

Adobe Flash Player is used by 96.18% of all PSI users. During the beta, 35.38% of all beta testers had a Adobe Flash Player security patch automatically installed by the Secunia PSI Auto Update feature.

Roughly 37% of the users with Adobe Flash Player installed, got their critical security patch from the Secunia PSI rather than from the vendor. In other words, 37% of Adobe Flash Player users would have been vulnerable for a substantial amount of time as the vendor failed to push the required security update to their end-users.

Sun Java JRE 1.6.x / 6.x

Sun Java is used by 78.85% of all PSI users. During the beta, 36.75% of all beta testers had a Sun Java security patch automatically installed by the Secunia PSI Auto Update feature.

Roughly 47% of the users with Sun Java installed got their critical security patch from the Secunia PSI rather than from the vendor. In other words, 47% of Sun Java users would have been vulnerable for a substantial amount of time as the vendor failed to push the required security update to their end-users.

Adobe Reader 9.x

Adobe Reader is used by 63.31% of all PSI users. During the beta, 15.27% of all beta testers had a Adobe Reader security patch automatically installed by the Secunia PSI Auto Update feature.

Roughly 24% of the users with Adobe Reader installed got their critical security patch from the Secunia PSI rather than from the vendor. In other words, 24% of Adobe Reader users would have been vulnerable for a substantial amount of time as the vendor failed to push the required security update to their end-users.

New major features included with the new Secunia PSI 2.0

• Auto Updating of third party programs
• New user interface
• Secunia PSI API for developers (read more)
• Integration with the Secunia CSI (read more)
• For all the changes, please review the changelog

Download today

http://secunia.com/PSISetup.exe

We hope you will enjoy the new Secunia PSI 2.0 with automatic updates.

Stay Secure,

Jakob Balle
VP of Product Development