Delaying Critical Updates Creates Vulnerabilities

You could inadvertently pass malware or viruses to colleagues and friends

While viruses can be transmitted via email, they can also be spread through corporate networks and removable hard drives. This can quickly spread throughout a company if a proper operating system and antivirus updates haven’t been installed.

Automatic updates may be disabled

One thing to check right away is whether automatic updates have been disabled on any of your machines. Occasionally, users will turn off automatic updates for either their antivirus software or operating system software without realizing this error’s gravity.

Without these programs updating regularly, you’ll be opening yourself up to cyber threats that take advantage of vulnerabilities in outdated software.

Cyber threats are more prevalent now than ever before

Many companies will get used to a certain operating system or software application and avoid updating it because of convenience. What they don’t realize is that many times these updates contain security patches for the latest threats.

These threats change regularly, and as quickly as software companies patch one breach, hackers are hard at work to find the next one. Stay updated to avoid being an easy target.

Critical information and documents are at risk when you avoid installing software updates.

Gone are the days when companies had rows and rows of file cabinets containing every file that was important to a business. Today’s file cabinets are almost entirely inside of hard disks and cloud storage facilities around the world. While this digital-based storage offers massive convenience, including accessing the data from anywhere on any device, it doesn’t come without its risks.

One of the most critical vulnerabilities of digital file storage is that if hackers gain access to your network and your data is not adequately encrypted or backed up, you could find yourself in a standoff; hackers who have taken control of your data won’t relinquish it until you pay a large sum of money.

One example of this type of ransomware is WannaCry, which exploited Microsoft’s SMB protocol. The ironic thing about this attack was that Microsoft had already released a fix for the vulnerability, but older machines were targeted which had not yet installed it.

In fact, the WannaCry outbreak prompted Microsoft to even release patches for Windows XP, which is no longer supported by the company. This example shows how critical operating system updates can be – and how often companies avoid them.