Make sure your computing devices are patched today!

At no time in the history of known software vulnerabilities has it ever been more important to be vigilant about ensuring your computer devices have been fully updated and patched.  Recent news of the Broadcom “BroadPwn” WiFi Chip vulnerability that impacts more than a Billion smart phones and other computing devices that use the vulnerable Broadcom chips, and can allow for automatic spreading of malware when one device is within WiFi range, less than a thousand feet of another vulnerable device, makes this highly important to take immediate action.  Broadcom chips are also in many computing devices such as the Raspberry Pi Computers, as well as many others.

US Cert issued an advisory and reminder to the public about the importance of installing the August 8th, 2017 released security updates for active Windows Operating system platforms to protect against a remote attacker taking control of a computing system.

If you are curious as to the status of your home or work computer’s patch update status that happens to be running the Windows 10 Operating System, simply click the Windows settings button, then select Updates & Security.

 

Next, select Update History and you will be able to tell when your computer last received updates.  Updates generally should be applied a day or two after release, but certainly before the end of tomorrow.

The following screenshot shows that updates haven’t been applied since July 2017, which means the computer needs updates.  If you see that your computer does not have security updates applied, either contact your IT department, notify your CIO or attempt to install them yourself so that you keep your computer safe from remote control by a drive by hacker that may be within WiFi distance of your computer.

If you are having problems installing windows updates, dropping to a DOS Command line as Administrator and running the following commands can help repair a corrupted Windows Update component and restore the normal Windows Update process and functions.

Start > Begin Typing CMD > Mouse over the Command Prompt Icon when it appears and Right Click, then Left Click Run as Administrator

(Note it is always a good idea to run a backup of your computer before doing this, but I confess I haven’t always done so)

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOS COMMAND: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

 

After you have run Windows Update manually, your computer likely will need to be restarted once more with potentially a second Windows Update and possible second restart to have the full security update protections applied.

 

Good luck with updating!

We are in a new world of Cyber security where attackers are infiltrating computer chips through various wireless protocols and vulnerabilities.  Patch all of your devices today before you become the next victim of a cyber attack!

Please share this post on Facebook, Google or Linkedin so that your friends get the protection they need before it is too late and they fall prey to a WiFi drive by attack on their smart phone, tablet, or computers!