I assume you have read about #WannaCry
Or you can just directly go here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55245
See also:
More background information:
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And sine we are already on this topic, cloud based backup with versioning and unlimited storage costs around 60 dollars a year. Might be a very low price for keeping your data safe (even something as stupid as family photos for example). So back-up.
Fixing vulnerabilities and having up-to-date AV protection is not prevention, it only comes after something bad had happened. And no it is not a clever ad. I do not get any income by recommending this 
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Or switch to Linux … 
It’s free, it’s fast, it has the safety features made possible by open source code with literally thousands of programmers looking for security holes and patching them ASAP (and not when the bean counters say it’s OK to release an update), and the updates rarely break your system or take hours to install as they often do with M$ updates. – And did I mention: it’s free?!!
Especially with widely-used open-source libraries like OpenSSL. Oh wait.
This is a dirty, dirty lie.
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Unfortunatly, Linux is not suitable for the majority of common users. And even when using linux I would still urge anyone who depends even a little bit on his data to have some backup running.
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I guess that I must have an extreme amount of luck then: I use Linux on seven different computers for over ten years now. Not ever has an official update broken my system. I run update checks at least every other day, and when there are security updates available, I install them immediately.
Gee, what a lucky guy I must be …
And I guess the fact that most major enterprises, stock exchanges, banks, etc. use Linux to run their highly sensitive systems is because the systems break frequently when updated … LOL You’re really funny today, rowan.
Of course, everyone witha grain of salt for a brain should be backing up their data – no matter which OS they use.
And have you ever tred a recent modern Linux desktop distribution in the last, say five years? I think that for the “majority of common users” M$ Windows is not suitable. How many “common users” know enough about system security to set up a M$ Windows system so that it no longer spies on them? How many know how to reinstall the system if an update breaks it? How many understand that closed source software is impossible to check for security holes because no one has access to the source code? 
It’s interesting to note and speculate upon the reasons that the official Windows Store site now offers three different Linux distributions: Fedora, Ubuntu and openSUSE … 
Look, I really have no desire to argue about this, nor do I see the point. Every OS has it’s own perks and problems. And on every OS you run into security issues. Shouting only linux is safe, linux for everyone would be as shortsighted as shouting MS Win is the best. In no way am I saying that linux is bad (on the contrary I agree it has many perks for many uses) but I can’t really see my mother using it anytime soon. Does yours?
And that’s kind of my point. Majority of users does not care about these issues at all. They just wanna double click their “internet” icon and be done with it. That’s all they need and that’s totally fine (they might even be better off 
). I am just recommending to have a failsafe 
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BTW, my wife and I are retired and our parents died long ago. But we enjoy Linux and find it no more difficult than M$ Windows – especially using the online forums that many Linux distros provide, we don’t have customer support issues to battle in order to protect our investment. 
You think you can out-sarcasm me? Challenge accepted.
Obviously your vague anecdotal experience trumps any other evidence that Linux systems are a patchwork of software maintained by people in their spare time.
And those industries definitely don’t employ experts who test updates before deploying them to production servers.
/sarcasm
Seriously though, all OSes are crap. Linux systems tend to be slightly less crappy than average, but you shouldn’t mislead the uninitiated. A Linux system is a high-performance car you have to maintain yourself. If something goes wrong, prepare to get your hands very dirty.
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A switch to Linux is not an option for me since I heavily depend on Adobe softwares for my job.
Also, I’m quite happy to use a Mac for the past decades, after (sadly) having to switch away from NeXTstep after NeXT stopped producing hardware and later the OS. I remember how extremely happy I was when Apple and NeXT merged, which was something I had been wishing for for a few years by then.
Windows runs here (also for my job, I use this almost exclusively for Adobe Framemaker) in a virtual machine, in a (full screen) window (<:smiling_imp:> which is where this crap belongs and where it can’t do too much harm </ 
>). All surfing etc. from the Mac side. And backup, backup, backup, backup. (Complete clones, of course, so if anything happens I only need to plug in the backup drive and get going again.)
Being <cough> somewhat </cough> nerdy, I will probably keep on using several OS even after I retire, also given that I have heavily invested in diverse Mac-specific softwares, but I’m quite sure that I’ll add some Linux flavour to the mixture then, just to be in the know.
Anyway … this may also be relevant:
Note/quote:
[quote]Summary
This article describes how to enable and disable Server Message Block (SMB) version 1 (SMBv1), SMB version 2 (SMBv2), and SMB version 3 (SMBv3) on the SMB client and server components.
Warning: We do not recommend that you disable SMBv2 or SMBv3. Disable SMBv2 or SMBv3 only as a temporary troubleshooting measure. Do not leave SMBv2 or SMBv3 disabled.[/quote]
Yes, even though closed source, Mac is a very good good alternative to M$ products.
Oh no, but does that not mean that literally thousands of people are not looking for holes?
Virtulising microkernels should outshine any monolithic kernel security wise. I’d also like to mention that the 4.8 kernel broke support for several old intel processors.
Automatic snapshotting though, is something definitely worth considering, no matter what platform you’re on. Granted, it wont save you when the attacker is root, but they’re so much more convient than offline backups.
One cannot expect old processor designs to be supported forever. Even M$ does not support old architectures. :slight_smile
However, Linux does have many older kernels that are kept up to date with security patches for many old processors.
And what is really the need for a new kernel? You really only need one for new processors and components that old kernels did not even “knew” were to exist at the time they were developed.
Ah, but it was part of an official update, so I think I have reason to complain about the veracity of your claims. Note that I said “broke support”, not “removed support”. The processor, a Core 2, was at that time still supported by both Windows and Linux operating systems, IIRC, though only the NT kernel seemed inclined to work on it. Yes, I can use
I hardly blame Linux developers, but I do believe your near worship of the operating systems is misplaced.
Worship is a misplaced description. And no OS is perfect. However, all Linux distros make it easy to fall back to the previous working kernel (should a new version not work with your hardware). And unless the new version included some important security patch, there was really no reason to “fix” your running system by installing the new kernel.
[quote=“Adam3141, post:9, topic:12053”]
I can’t really see my mother using it anytime soon. Does yours?[/quote]
Actually, she does! She’s used Ubuntu 6.06 LTS for about 10 years and I recently switched her to Debian. She’s not great with computers but for the little amount she does use (word processing and a teeny tiny bit of internet), it works fine.
Not saying it works for everyone, but Linux, MacOS, and Windows are almost identical if you are new to the system or if you can learn slightly different shortcuts.
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And I assume your mother does not have a Ph.D. in computer science …?