How safe is your computer from software vulnerabilities? Do you have the latest patches and upgrades for your programs? Is your browser uptodate? How about your media player? Test the free Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) BETA to find out!
“The free Secunia Personal Software Inspector is the next evolution of the Secunia Software Inspector series”, says Thomas Kristensen, CTO of Secunia. “Like the Software Inspector and the Network Software Inspector, it is designed to inspect what software you have on your computer, whether you have the latest version and security patches, and if not, how you can upgrade to the latest safe version”.
“We really felt that there was a need to make the average user aware of the dangers of leaving your applications unpatched”, says Kristensen. Most Windows users are aware of Microsoft Patch Tuesday, he adds, because it is heavily marketed and it notifies you in a userfriendly way that you need to take action.
However, Patch Tuesday only covers Microsoft products and not the very large number of equally dangerous vulnerabilities discovered in other software. Most people aren’t aware of these issues, or don’t want to spent hours every month hunting for the relevant information about security updates.
“Our idea to solve this is to make all this information available through a userfriendly interface to make it as easy as possible for people to check the security patch status of their software”, Kristensen adds.
Secunia is offering the PSI as a free tool for private individuals as part of our effort to make browsing the Internet a safer activity.
Users are invited to take part in BETA testing the Secunia Personal Software Inspector. The BETA version can be downloaded from: https://psi.secunia.com/
Both the BETA and final versions of the PSI are free. The final version will also be available from the Secunia website.
“We really want to highlight the emerging issues of private consumers not being aware of the possibility that their sensitive data can be exposed through their personal computer when applications are left unpatched”, says Kristensen. Patching applications, Kristensen adds, ensures that you are protected against currentlyknown software vulnerabilities and attack vectors from online criminals.
However, with the dozens of programs you have on your computer, trying to keep up with each upgrade is practically impossible. To do so would require you to spend a lot of time checking vendor websites and surfing the Internet for news on software vulnerabilities, and this just isn’t very feasible.
The PSI does all that for you, and more. With a click of the mouse, the PSI identifies the installed software on your computer, and determines which ones are secure, and which ones aren’t. It then tells you where you can download updates to turn your nonsecure software to secure software, making the transition from vulnerable computer to secured system as easy as 123. And did we mention it’s free?
To ensure that your computer is thoroughly inspected for vulnerable software, you just need to follow these three simple steps: Step 1 is to download the PSI from https://psi.secunia.com and run it on your personal computer. Step 2 is to check the inspection results for applications marked as “Insecure” and “Endoflife” (meaning they are no longer supported by the vendor). Step 3 is to check the vulnerability information to see where you can download the secure software version.
The PSI detects more than 4,200 different applications and versions, ensuring that whatever software you have installed in your system is monitored by Secunia for software flaws, security patches, and updated versions.
The final version of the PSI will also be though the Secunia websites, thirdparty download sites, and globally present partners. Our partners, who also share our concern regarding the rising level of unpatched applications, will be capable of distributing an easytouse tool compared to their current alternative of advising their users/customers to manually keep all applications patched.
Securityoriented organisations that cater to consumer needs, such as ISPs and banks, can also take advantage of the PSI to better inform their subscribers and account holders about the necessity of online security.
To detect what software you have on your network, Secunia uses its File Signature technology, which is composed of carefully programmed rules used to identify installed applications, and their exact versions on Windowsbased systems.
To detect if your software version is the latest nonvulnerable version available from the vendor, the Software Inspector uses Secunia Advisory Intelligence technology, which Secunia has been providing to the global IT community for over four years.
Secunia’s commercial services include vulnerability advisories and analysis, exploit code, binary analysis, and file signatures. The complete Secunia File Signature database contains more than 110,000 rules for detecting more than 4,200 unique applications and their exact versions.
To know more about the services that Secunia can provide for you and your company, please go to http://corporate.secunia.com.
Press Contact Information:
Thomas Kristensen, CTO
pr@secunia.com
Phone: +45 7020 5144
Fax: +45 7020 5145
Jul 26, 2007
Secunia Personal Software Inspector now available for BETA Testing
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1 Comment:
PSI is really good product, an online scan is possible from the PSI?
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