Unpatched OS Increasing Vulnerability of Saudi PC Users

Nearly a fifth of PC users in Saudi Arabia have unpatched operating systems increasing their chances of being hit by cyber attacks, according to a new report.

Cyber security company Secunia found that 17.4 per cent of users had unpatched versions of WinXP, Win7, Win8 or Windows Vista.

The average Saudi PC user has 86 programmes installed from 29 different vendors, 35 of which are Microsoft programmes with the remainder from third-party vendors, according to the report.

Just over 14 per cent had unpatched third party programmes on average, while end-of-life programmes (no longer patched by the vendor) were present on 5.2 per cent of machines.

“Cybercriminals know that most private users consider regular security maintenance of their PC hard work. As a result, a lot of users have PCs that are inadequately patched and therefore easily compromised,” Secunia noted.

From April 2013 to March 2014 Secunia found that 58 per cent of vulnerabilities on PCs in the country originated from third party programmes, with the remainder found in Microsoft programmes (29 per cent) and users’ operating systems (13 per cent)

The top five most exposed programmes based on market share and percentage of unpatched users were found to be Microsoft XML Core Services, VLC Media Player 2.x, Oracle Java JRE 1.7x/ 7.x, Adopt Reader X 10.x and Apple iTunes 11.x

Adobe Flash Player 11.x, Oracle Java JRE 1.6x/ 6.x, Google Chrome 32.x, Real Player 16.x and Adobe AIR 3.x were found to be the top five end-of-life programmes.

The report was based on scans by Secunia Personal Software Inspector on Q1 of 2014.

“It is safe to assume that Secunia PSI users are more secure than other PC users,” the company claimed.