One week ago, the RSA 2010 Conference finished, having had Secunia as an exhibitor and silver sponsor.

At RSA, we also presented a white paper, detailing the patching scope and level of the typical private user. The data used in the white paper was based on the two million users of the Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI), and the conclusion of the research is clear: The burden of patching and updating is too cumbersome for the private users, causing many not to update and, thereby, leaving them vulnerable and open to attacks!

Last year Secunia advocated for the software industry to unite and help the users update in a automated unified manner, thereby, improving the security level of the private users. Realizing that the industry did not find this as important as Secunia, we decided to pursue this on our own, and at RSA I announced Secunia's ambition to launch the Secunia PSI 2.0 with Automatic Updating. A solution with the ultimate goal of alleviating the private users' pain of having to manually update software programs.

This announcement was received very positively by the security professionals that we met at RSA, and the announcement and our white paper have both facilitated good media attention during the past week. This is reflected by articles in various media, including MIT Technology Review, InfoWorld, and Dark Reading.

An important goal for Secunia in 2010 is to continue informing about the fact that patching is an essential security mechanism, regardless of other measures, and focus on providing an efficient and simple way for private users to stay updated and secure. For this Secunia will provide the Secunia PSI 2.0 by a technology preview in April/May 2010, followed by a beta test, and with an expected launch of a final release version in Autumn 2010.

We hope for your contribution and help in our efforts to improve the security for the private users.

Thank you for a great RSA 2010, and looking forward to seeing you at RSA 2011.

In the meantime, I hope to see you at some of the other conferences and events that Secunia will attend this year (see list below)

Patch & Stay Secure

Niels Henrik Rasmussen

PS: Secunia will be attending the following upcoming conferences & events during the next few months:

• Microsoft Management Summit 2010: Las Vegas, April 19-23
• SC Awards Europe: London, 27th April (CSI nominated in the category 'Best Security Management')
• Infosecurity Europe 2010: London, 27-29 April
• 22nd Annual FIRST Conference 2010: Miami, June 13-18