Trying Secunia Vulnerability Scanning

One feature which most Unix systems possess, and that most Windows systems lack, is a native means to manage non-base applications. If I install packages through apt-get or a similar mechanism on Ubuntu, the package manager notifies me when an update is needed and it's easy for me to install them. Windows does not natively offer this function, so third party solutions must be installed.

I had heard about Secunia's vulnerability scanning offerings, but I had never tried them. I decided to try the online version (free for anyone) and then the personal version on a home laptop I hadn't booted recently.

You can see the results for the online scanner below. All that was needed was a JRE install to get these results.



The online scanner noticed I was running an older version of Firefox, and I needed to apply recent Microsoft patches. The fact that it checked Adobe Flash and Acrobat Reader was important, since those are popular exploit vectors.

Next I tried the personal version and got the results below.



This scan added more results, but only after I unchecked "Show only 'Easy-to-Patch' programs" on the Settings tab. I like that Secunia told me that my Intel wireless NIC driver needed patching. If I look for details I see this:



Clicking on the Download Solution icon took me to an Intel Web page, but at that point I needed to know what NIC driver I needed. That's why Secunia says "If you have the technical knowledge to handle more difficult programs, then we strongly recommend that you disable this setting" with respect to the "Show only 'Easy-to-Patch' programs" option.

I noticed Secunia doesn't check to see if WinSCP is patched, so I used the easy "Program missing? Suggest it here!" link to offer that idea to Secunia.

What do you use to keep the various applications installed on Windows up-to-date?