Vulnerabilities and programs updates as part of computer security is an interesting subject. Savvy computer users realize early on that patching their computer programs plus having a good security setup (preventive maintenance) is better than having to deal with a malware infection (corrective maintenance) or with a possible resultant data loss or identity theft (just plain damage control). Last week’s article provided readers with a tool to check their web browser for out-of-date plugins that could open the door to hackers exploiting existing vulnerabilities to gain remote control of your computer. This week we’ll move on to a more embracive tool  tool that will check your whole computer for vulnerabilities and similarly generate a report of out-of-date programs in your computer that pose potential security risks with links to newer, more secure versions. This tool is free for personal use. It’s called Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI).

Users with Windows XP installed in their computers can download it by clicking on the following link:

ftp://ftp.secunia.com/PSISetup1501.exe

Users with Windows Vista or Windows 7 can download it by clicking on the following link:

http://secunia.com/PSISetup.exe

Warning: Use judgment when updating the versions of your different programs. Given the individual configuration of computers, sometimes a newer version of a program might present a problem that did not exist before. Example: I recently tried to update Skype in my laptop. The newest version of Skype did not recognize some of the hardware I was using for audio recording/playback. Had to revert to the earlier version and wait for a future version that will fix that bug. Moral of the story is either be able to use judgment and undo what you update as needed, or have an expert available to help if needed.

If you so wish, once you have scanned your computer and brought all the programs to their latest version, you can uninstall PSI.