The theme of the week for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is software updates. Updating software is an important part of keeping data and devices secure, but there are risks associated with updates. For UW-owned devices or personally owned devices used to access UW systems and data, identify who is responsible for updating and patching the operating system and applications.
For your personal computers and devices, consider the following tips from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency (CISA). In their “Secure Our World campaign, they recommend three steps to keep software up to date:
1. Watch for notifications
Our devices will usually notify us that we need to run updates. This includes our devices’ operating systems, programs and apps. It’s important to install ALL updates, especially for our web browsers and antivirus software.
2. Install updates as soon as possible
When notified about software updates, especially critical updates, we should be sure to install them as soon as possible. Malicious online criminals won’t wait, so we shouldn’t either!
3. Turn on automatic updates
With automatic updates, our devices will install updates without any input from us as soon as the update is available.
CISA: Secure Our World: Software Updates
OIS: Software Updates theme page and Update and Patch Risk Advisory