Back in March of this year a security expert figured out a way to use a specially-crafted Adobe PDF file to cause your computer to run an executable file embedded in that PDF document.  If you understood what I just wrote there’s a pretty high likelihood that you heard about the flaw and did your Adobe update last week when the patch was released.  If you didn’t really get any of that you’re probably one of millions of people who don’t pay attention to the little blinking update icons sitting down there in your system tray.  If that’s you, you need to change your ways!  Most of the virus and malware issues I see are a result of two things: outdated virus subscriptions and missing system updates.  Updates, especially Windows updates can be tedious.  This is one of those things that you just have to do, so make the time!

Important Updates to do:

  • Antivirus (it should be doing this automatically)
  • Windows Updates (I’m not a fan of auto-applied updates – do them manually as the icon pops up)
  • Java updates (these are less frequent, do them as they come up)
  • Adobe updates (also infrequent, so catch them when they arrive)

Software updates are a fact of life on any platform – including Mac and Linux.  In fact.. Linux updates come out much more frequently than Windows updates.  Manage these little annoyances and you’ll have fewer computer issues!