Auto-Updates - Proactive or Begging for Abuse? 35
narzy asks: "To me one of the most important steps to keeping a computer secure is keeping the systems software up to date. The problem I run in to is that more and more of the applications in everyday use are web enabled in some context or another, making them high targets for attack and exploitation. I am beginning to find it difficult to keep clients computers completely up to date. I find that applications that have an auto update such as my anti-virus Nod32 which updates every day on its own a real blessing. It's a feature that is an option but and option that I personally wish was in a lot more software. Windows has this feature (so does Linux if you want it to) however in the case of Windows it's not exactly all that consistent. Unfortunately it opens another can of worms that isn't so enjoyable that being companies who abuse such a system for advertising purposes, modifying the software in such a way to reduce or change its functionality either because of internal decisions or external pressures from 3rd parties, compromise and abuse of the server the company uses to distribute the updates. But is it worth the added risk to know that 95%+ of the time your software is up to date?
It's not a cure all but is it or is it not better then a reactive approach?"
Re:It's all about how lazy you are... - so wait (Score:3, Funny)
And if you're lucky the hackers will have patched the bug for you by then so that other hackers don't get access to their new zombie host and mess around. Hackers, auto-updating UNIX systems for admins since 1969.