98% Windows PCs at risk

[dwarakesh]

Virtually all Windows computers (more than 98 per cent) are running at least one unpatched application, and nearly half contain 11 or more programmes at risk from attack, are the alarming revelations of the Copenhagen-based security company Secunia.

In the study, Secunia APS says that 98.1 per cent of the PCs on which its Personal Software Inspector (PSI) utility was installed over the last week have one or more applications that have security updates available for downloading. Only 1.9 per cent of Windows systems that ran the PSI utility for the first time had no out-of-date programmes.

The data gathered from 20,000 users showed that about a third of the systems ran a vulnerable version of five or fewer programmes, while nearly half of the machines ran 11 or more insecure applications.

The company considered a programme "insecure" if a newer version  correcting at least one security flaw was available but not installed on the user's system.

PSI works by scanning Windows systems for installed applications and checking to see if the most current versions of those applications are installed. If not, the programme makes a note and then provides a link to the updated version. To gather its numbers, Secunia said that it tracked the results of each user's first PSI scan.