Software of the Week: Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI)

Some people tend to ignore security vulnerabilities when it comes to windows security. The problem is either they don't have any idea of its danger, or that they just focused the limelight solely on antivirus solutions, which is effective but not efficient....yet.

Vulnerabilities are a very risky issue for a computer users. It allows a hacker to control your PC remotely, infect your pc with virus, mess up your pc configurations...to put things in a few phrase: your computer is infiltrated, just as how a virus infiltrates your PC. Vulnerabilities exists from sorts of software issues such as end-of-life programs or software with exploited security holes which are not patched. The problem is, how are you going to sort out the vulnerabilities and fix it?

We can entrust this to a software service called Secunia Personal Software Inspector, aka Secunia PSI.

Secunia PSI is a free vulnerability scanning tool made available by Secunia Corporation. It scans your PC via checking firstly, the software installed on your PC and then secondly, matching their versions to their online software database. If they discover that some of your software are vulnerable and required patching, they will inform you and gives you some options to update, uninstall and check that particular software's directory. One thing that Secunia is so special about is that unlike Microsoft's Windows Update, which only checks for updates within the scope of Microsoft products, Secunia PSI checks for both windows updates and third-party software.

The installation package of Secunia is less than 1 MB; a pretty lightweight little installer. Installation procedures are fast and no-nonsense. When run, it connects to the Secunia server to set up the software's interface. Interface are separated into two groups: the Simple View for average novice and the Advanced View for expert users. You can set up Secunia PSI to run automatically at startup, so that the tool will constantly monitor changes to your list of applications and notify you when there's an existing vulnerability. Coming with it is a historic overview graph bar which tells you how your system vulnerability score is in a time span of once every week.

This tool is not without flaws though. Because the software is an online service and thus, depends entirely on an existing internet connection to work, it is not 100% convenient for a laptop or netbook. This program also have occasional tendency to freeze up, especially during switching between the simple and advanced interface. Therefore, i suggest that users must really try some patience with this little tool. However, it is not some serious issues and so i seriously recommend it to all users using a PC.

To download Secunia PSI now, click this link, or visit their official website for more information.