Windows updates, or patches, often times contains fixes to resolve general issues or bugs as well as to keep the computer safe from malicious software (viruses, etc). Sometimes new features are released through updates.
Updates or patches are categorized, by Microsoft, into one of four categories… Critical, Important, Moderate or Low. Either way… these patches or updates are important to implement.
Microsoft, beginning in 2003, started formalizing the update/patching process by pushing them out on the second, and sometimes the fourth, Tuesday of the month… this is widely known as Patch Tuesday.
Lesser known is Exploit Wednesday… the day bad guys analyze recently released patches/updates in an effort to exploit them.
Imagine you are at a football game with 70,000 other fans and they give a PSA announcing that your Ford Fusion has it’s lights on and it was noticed that you left your doors unlocked. Bad guys are going to race to the parking lot to try and find the car before you fix the situation. The longer you wait, the more apt that someone is going to take advantage of your plight.
In the example above, the PSA is Microsoft announcing / providing updates that can fix potential issues with your computer. Bad guys download and analyze these updates to see what is being fixed or patched. They then try and use this information to hack computers of people who haven’t utilized the updates. The longer people wait to run the updates the more time bad guys have to hack.
Now I know that some of you may have had bad experiences with updates, but considering how complex the computer coding environment is and the benefits of the patches, it is best to keep them up to date as they most often don’t result in mishaps.