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GFI LANguard adds new applications to its patch management list

on July 26, 2010
Apple QuickTime, Adobe Air and Opera Browser among the New Applications That Can Be Patched Using GFI LANguard
GFI LANguard 9.5 was launched at the end of May with a new and very important feature for people working in the network security area: patch management for non-Microsoft applications.
The aim is to perform from a central location network wide detection, download and deployment of missing updates for all important vendors of popular applications widely spread in corporate environments. Such applications get a lot of attention from hackers and therefore need security updates quite often.
The enhancement saves a lot of a network administrator’s time as it would take forever to patch each machine individually even for relatively small networks with 20-100 machines. To have an idea of the amount of work involved it is enough to take a look at some of the updates released last month (June 2010):
-Microsoft
oOne Microsoft Silverlight update (June 3rd)
o10 security bulletins on patch Tuesday (June 8th)
-Mozilla
oTwo updates of Firefox (Firefox 3.6.4/Firefox 3.5.10 and Firefox 3.6.6)
oTwo updates of Thunderbird (Thunderbird 3.0.5 and Thunderbird 3.1)
-Adobe
oOne update of Flash Player (Flash Player 9.0.277.0/Flash Player 10.1.53.64)
oOne update of Reader (Reader 8.2.3/Reader 9.3.3)
oOne update of Acrobat (Acrobat 8.2.3/Acrobat 9.3.3)
There are a total of 18 updates only from Microsoft, Mozilla and Adobe. Other vendors (i.e. Apple) have released security updates too. It becomes extremely hard to keep up with them.
So far, beside Microsoft security updates, LANguard 9.5 could be used to patch popular applications from Adobe (Flash Player, Acrobat Standard and Professional, Reader and Shockwave Player), Mozilla (Firefox and Thunderbird) and Oracle (Java Runtime Environment).
Starting on July 13, 2010 new applications are added to the supported list:
-Apple QuickTime
-Adobe Air
-Adobe Acrobat Professional Extended
-Opera Browser
The complete list of supported applications is available here. Stay tuned however as new applications will be added to the list soon!
If you would like us to consider additional applications for patch management you can submit a request here.

GFI LANguard 9.5 was launched at the end of May with a new and very important feature for people working in the network security area: patch management for non-Microsoft applications.

The aim is to perform from a central location network wide detection, download and deployment of missing updates for all important vendors of popular applications widely spread in corporate environments. Such applications get a lot of attention from hackers and therefore need security updates quite often.

The enhancement saves a lot of a network administrator’s time as it would take forever to patch each machine individually even for relatively small networks with 20-100 machines. To have an idea of the amount of work involved it is enough to take a look at some of the updates released last month (June 2010):

  • Microsoft
    oOne Microsoft Silverlight update (June 3rd)
    o10 security bulletins on patch Tuesday (June 8th)
  • Mozilla
    oTwo updates of Firefox (Firefox 3.6.4/Firefox 3.5.10 and Firefox 3.6.6)
    oTwo updates of Thunderbird (Thunderbird 3.0.5 and Thunderbird 3.1)
  • Adobe
    oOne update of Flash Player (Flash Player 9.0.277.0/Flash Player 10.1.53.64)
    oOne update of Reader (Reader 8.2.3/Reader 9.3.3)
    oOne update of Acrobat (Acrobat 8.2.3/Acrobat 9.3.3)

There are a total of 18 updates only from Microsoft, Mozilla and Adobe. Other vendors (i.e. Apple) have released security updates too. It becomes extremely hard to keep up with them.

So far, beside Microsoft security updates, LANguard 9.5 could be used to patch popular applications from Adobe (Flash Player, Acrobat Standard and Professional, Reader and Shockwave Player), Mozilla (Firefox and Thunderbird) and Oracle (Java Runtime Environment).

Starting on July 13, 2010 new applications are added to the supported list:

  • Apple QuickTime
  • Adobe Air
  • Adobe Acrobat Professional Extended
  • Opera Browser

The complete list of supported applications is available. Stay tuned however as new applications will be added to the list soon!

If you would like us to consider additional applications for patch management you can submit a request.

About the Author:

Cristian Florian is product manager at GFI Software. Starting as a software developer, he developed his career step by step gaining more than 12 years of experience in network security and software development. He currently oversees GFI LanGuard, a successful network security scanning and patch management solution.

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Comments
Sue Walsh July 29, 20108:07 am

Sounds like an incredibly useful piece of software! The amount of updates Mozilla, and Adobe push are insane, especially Mozilla! It seems like every time I turn around FireFox is updating again. I can see how this would save a ton of time!

Gregory July 30, 20109:44 pm

I agree with you Sue. Firefox updates so much it makes you wonder if they do it to kill time or something. Talking about patches, any plans on including Google products such as Chrome on the list?

Cristian Florian August 2, 20104:34 pm

@ Gregory

Google Chrome is in our research list for patch management, but at this stage we cannot confirm if it will be supported or not.

Until recently it was only possible to install it for the user that triggered the installation, thus making it impossible to manage by other users (including administrators). That made it inappropriate for corporate environment.

Now it can be installed system wide too, which is a big step forward.

Cristian Florian January 13, 201111:08 am

Update: Now LANguard 9.6 supports patching of Google Chrome.