If your computer seems to be working fine, you may wonder why you should apply a patch. By not applying patches, you might be leaving the door open for malware to come in.
Benefits
Malware (such as viruses and worms) will exploit software flaws on your computer in order to do their work. Knowing how to patch your computer automatically while at MIT can prevent major headaches. IS&T can help you set up automatic patches so that you don't even have to think about it.
Key Features
- Security updates for Mac OS and Windows operating systems
- New releases of IS&T provided software
- MIT Windows Automatic Update Service (WAUS)
- Red Hat Network (RHN)
Requirements
MIT certificates are required to download anti-virus software, new versions of IS&T-supported software and to subscribe to automatic updates.
Getting Started
Microsoft
- The Automatic Updates feature in your operating system provides an option for you to be notified of any updates before downloading them or it installs them automatically. The frequency of notification is up to you.
- At MIT, if you subscribe instead to the Windows Automatic Update Service (WAUS), you will receive a more conservative selection of the most critical security updates from Microsoft.
Apple
- Mac OS X automatically checks for software updates provided you have an Internet connection. You can choose a different schedule (set weekly by default) or check manually. If you see an update that you will never use, you can deselect it from the update menu.
Linux
- IS&T provides an update service for Red Hat Enterprise Linux machines. Other Linux systems are not as simple to patch because of the nature of Linux software and its many distributions. Each distribution has a different method of patching. Learn more about the Red Hat Network update service.
Receive Announcements
To receive announcements about security updates and patches for the most common operating systems and software, subscribe to IS&T's Security-FYI, the newsletter destributed weekly to the MIT community. You can also view announcements online at the Security-FYI blog.
Learn more about applying patches and OS updates.
New Versions of Software