ANN ARBOR – A new report from Duo Security set to be released May 10 will show that 25 percent of all Windows devices are running outdated versions of Internet Explorer, open to 700 known vulnerabilities for hackers.
What’s more, the report shows 60 percent of Flash users are running out-of-date versions, while 72 percent have an outdated version of Java – exposing them to hundreds of vulnerabilities.
Compare that to 82 percent of Chrome users are up to date, compared to 58 percent of Edge and IE 11 users, and 66 percent of Firefox users.
Mac users are more up to date than Windows users when it comes to operating systems. Why? Apple users may be more likely to update their OS because these updates have been known to be quite stable; new OS X versions are also free and heavily promoted. Historically, major Windows updates have a reputation for causing major problems – sometimes even the blue screen of death.
Why is this important?
Today, users work from anywhere on personal devices per a widely accepted Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture.
At the same time, new threats have evolved to compromise outdated devices with known vulnerabilities, or to social engineer user credentials.
Attackers are targeting end users and their devices directly to gain access to important company data.
For businesses, this has a huge security impact. IT teams don’t have visibility into these targeted users’ devices at all, making it difficult to protect access to data in the cloud with traditional perimeter-focused security solutions.
The cybersecurity research team at Duo Labs analyzed a dataset of more than two million devices used by businesses around the world to learn more about the current state of device security health and is releasing a new report next week called “The 2016 Trusted Access Report: The Current State of Device Security,” will be available on May 10.
