Weekly update 35

Hang on - where did my week go?! WannaCry came out of the blue and accosted a big whack of my time starting first thing Saturday. And then, just as it was quietening down, I go and write about not turning off Windows Update and holy shit, did people come out of the woodwork to complain about that! Seriously, just read some of the comments there and the anger directed towards what (in my experience) is usually a pretty seamless process is palpable. More than the objections to updates themselves, it was the basis on which many of the points were made that stunned me; philosophical arguments about software being "free" (no, not as in price), claims of NSA collusion, abusive language at me working for Microsoft (which as the post explicitly says, I don't) and other behaviour that just totally floored me. But I did learn something from the exercise, not so much about problems with the update process itself, but rather the vitriol so many people seem to have towards the process within the operating system they chose to run which is there to keep them safe from nasty stuff. And yes, I know, pushing Win 10 aggressively and similar transgressions weren't cool, but still, wow...

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References

1. WannaCry. Wow. What a mess. (there are so many angles to this thing...)
2. Listen to the WannaCry situation on the Risky Business podcast (seriously worth a listen, the guys do a great job of dissecting it)
3. A bunch of people lost their minds over me telling them to leave Windows Update on (just read the comments and consider this in the context of how catastrophic the damage to unpatched machines can be)
4. I'll be speaking at the AusCERT event next week (The Responsibility of Disclosure: Playing Nice and Staying Out of Prison)
5. NetSparker are still sponsoring my blog this week (they picked a good one - 391k unique visitors!)