The list of Top Ten Exhibited Software
Oracle Java, Apple QuickTime, and Adobe Reader are the top three on the list of the top ten most exposed software in the US, according to a new survey of vulnerabilities and unpatched software on PCs.
The software was ranked based on a factor based on two parameters, the percentage of market share multiplied by the percentage of unpatched software instances detected, even if a patch was known to be available.
The report also lists how many vulnerabilities were detected and disclosed for the software in the last four quarters, starting in April 2014 through March 2015. The list is as follows:
“If a vulnerable program remains unpatched on your PC, it means your PC itself is vulnerable to exploitation by hackers,” the report states.
“So if 65% of PCs running Adobe Reader X 10.x, which has a 25% market share, are unpatched, then 17% of all PCs are vulnerable to that program. The same PC may have several other unpatched, vulnerable programs installed.”
The report also identified the top ten programs detected for PCs for which the developer no longer supports patch upgrades to mitigate known vulnerabilities. At the top of the list are older versions of Adobe Reader, Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML), and Google Chrome:
It is important to note that the report presents the state of security among PC users in the US who use Secunia Personal Software Inspector, and that the report may actually be different when reported to the general public.
"It is alarming that, with such a high market share, one in five users in the US fails to patch the Adobe PDF reader. Considering that PDF documents are a frequent target for hackers to gain access to IT systems, users themselves are putting themselves, and any system they connect to, at serious risk of information leakage," said Kasper Lindgaard of Secunia.
"It is of utmost importance that users remember to patch PDF readers, and work with IT teams to ensure that all PDF readers on all devices connected to the enterprise infrastructure are updated as necessary."
