What comes to mind when you think of security? For a lot of people, they think about locked gates, barbed wire, armed guard, cameras, and biometric and iris scanners. But what about computer security? Well, generally the first thing that comes to mind is antivirus or antimalware protection, followed by password security, and maybe a firewall.
What a lot of people ignore is the security you gain from keeping your computers up to date. Unfortunately, that means they are missing out on one of the easiest, and least expensive means of protecting their computers and business networks from cybercrime.
The WannaCry Ransomware Infection which occurred in May 2017 is a good example why keeping your computer up to date is so critical. It infected 200,000 machines across 150 countries – including up to 70,000 computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators, and theatre equipment owned by the National Health Service hospitals in England and Scotland.
By taking advantage of an exploit in Windows (Windows XP, Server 2003, and any unpatched Windows 7 and 10 machines), WannaCry was able to encrypt these devices and bring many companies to a screeching halt. The thing is – Microsoft released a patch to remove the vulnerability a month before WannaCry hit. Unfortunately, many companies still hadn’t applied it.
On top of security risks, these updates can do a lot to improve your computers performance. If you never update your machine it’s likely to slow down and begin to develop problems.
In this video Ted talks about the benefits of keeping your computers up-to-date, and what could happen if you don’t
If you want to learn more about cyber security, computer performance, productivity solutions, and IT best practices, check out our other videos, or take a look at our blog.