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Microsoft To Distribute Third-Party Patches

Posted by timothy on from the after-the-after-party dept.

dhiren writes "Secunia on Wednesday announced that their authenticated internal vulnerability scanner, the Corporate Software Inspector (CSI) 4.0, has been integrated with Microsoft Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). This will hopefully pave the way for other vendors to also make use of Windows' existing patching infrastructure and eliminate the need for the multitude of custom updater applications and services that clutter most systems today."

15 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading article by djben · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Correct me if I am wrong, but Secunia is announcing that they are going to piggy-back on an existing WSUS server, and not that WSUS is going to start shipping with and deploying Secunia's updates for everyone who uses WSUS? I'm not sure why this is anything special at all. I help people replace WSUS all the time and they want to use less of it, not more. Perhaps I'm not understanding something here...

    1. Re:Misleading article by bangwhistle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A lot of us use WSUS and SCCM because they do a good job of managing MS patches AND the cost (for WSUS) is right. This announcement is interesting but raises questions: how much will it cost; who will support it and how much work will it be to import third party updates? We can currently build packages for SCCM for any product, no not much gain there. But WSUS... Maybe it's time for the free trial...

    2. Re:Misleading article by afidel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I use WSUS on the server side because it doesn't require yet another freaking agent on my servers. In my experience the reliability of a windows server is inversely proportional to the number of third party packages running on it. I run AV because it's required by policy, I run a backup agent if the server has a large number of small files, other than that I avoid them like the plague. I do monitoring using WMI and SNMP, do patching via WSUS, etc.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  2. Wait, what's going on? by twidarkling · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Is this going to push updates via Windows Update to Windows 7 and other home versions as well, or just Win Server? Or is it even using Windows Update? Is that different from the "Windows Server Update Service?" I don't have anything to do with servers, so I'm honestly confused.

    --
    Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
  3. CNet used to have a similar service by Animaether · · Score: 2, Interesting

    CNet used to have a similar service... only for the software that they themselves offered to users, of course. Then they discontinued it, re-launched as CatchUp, discontinued it again.. now it's some weird newsletter thing you can subscribe to.

    Worked fairly well, though - was just a small utility that I guess checked for installed apps, checked the version info (from registry / files) for those it knew, and checked if there were any newer versions offered off of CNet.

    Sucked when they discontinued it.. meant you had to check the pages / author sites manually all the time.. or subscribe to their RSS feeds (which only became popular later on), etc. In addition, half the apps I run now have their own update checking stuff.. some check on startup, some check every day, some check once a week... finding the settings for this (if the settings are even exposed) can be a to of fun too.. etc.

    So hooray for Microsoft looking into this... looooong overdue. I do hope they allow -any- developer/application to take part, though.

    1. Re:CNet used to have a similar service by TClevenger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think my favorites used to be the ones that checked when the app started up. Adobe Acrobat Reader was really bad about this. "Would you like to take 30 minutes out of your day to load an Adobe Downloader so you can load the latest version of Adobe Reader so you can reboot and then have to come back to this page so you can read this one-page document, or ignore this and I'll pester you the next time you try to open a document?"

      You forgot the second half of that story.

      (30 minutes later) "Oh, sorry, you have to be an administrator to install that." (Then after the next reboot) "Would you like to take 30 minutes out of your day to load an Adobe Downloader so you can load the latest version of Adobe Reader so you can reboot and then have to come back to this page so you can read this one-page document, or ignore this and I'll pester you the next time you try to open a document?"

  4. The end for Internet Explorer by fran6gagne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The only reason we keep using Internet Explorer at work is because we can patch it with WSUS. So if we could patch firefox with WSUS, it will be the end of IE in our environment! Can't wait for that day to come....

  5. Personal Software Inspector by xippie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use PSI (Personal Software Inspector) http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/ \

  6. Compare? by vlm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't do windows. Mac and Linux only.

    Could someone compare and contrast with apt-get and security.debian.org, which I am very familiar with?

    I'm not trying to ignite a flamewar, I'm just curious about the feature set. What one side would have to add to reach the other side's level, etc.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    1. Re:Compare? by the_womble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Someone has to be amazingly closeminded and fundamentalist, and go out of their to avoid the most prevalent consumer OS for the last 10 years.

      It is fundamentalist and closed minded to not buy a product because you do not like it?

      Coca-cola is the most popular soft drink, if someone said that they had not drunk it for a few years because they never liked it, but they could not remember exactly what it tasted like, would that be "fundamentalist and closed minded"?

      go out of their to avoid the most prevalent consumer OS for the last 10 years.

      I have hardly touched Windows in the last six years. I have not gone out of my way: I would have to go out of my way to use Windows more. I have a laptop and a dektop, both with Linux installed. Dual boot would be a hassle, virtualisation uses too much memory, and I have no pressing reason to do either. I rarely use other people's machines, so it would take a definite effort to use Windows.

  7. OSS Alternative by bdam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The current version of WSUS includes an API that allows, among other things, anyone to publish third party updates through the WSUS system. I've been working on a project for a few months that does just that: https://sourceforge.net/projects/localupdatepubl

  8. Re:Oh just call it by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been thinking for quite a long time that Apple and Microsoft to come up with package managers for their operating systems. It's ironic because after all the talk of it being hard to install things in Linux, it's much easier to keep a Linux system up to date. In most cases, you can upgrade every application on your computer with a single line in the command line.

    Microsoft has "Microsoft Update" and Apple has "System Update", so they basically have the system in place already for their own software, but then 3rd party software all installs their own updaters or expect you to hunt down updates on the web. It seems to me their built-in updaters could be expanded for 3rd party updates through one of two methods:

    1. Microsoft and Apple could each create repositories for approved/certified applications which would be updated through "Microsoft Update" and "System Update", respectively. This has the advantage of being more secure (repositories would have known-good software in them) but would create a lot of additional work for Microsoft and Apple. Additionally, this wouldn't address the issue comprehensively since there would be applications which would never become certified.
    2. The other option would be to create an open set of standards that would allow each software developer/publisher to create their own repositories, and programs could add their repositories to the update system at install time. Then the update system would have a list of separate repositories for each publisher which could be managed by the user. The main downside I can think of for this is the possibility of malware getting into the repository list.
  9. Re:About time! by westlake · · Score: 1, Interesting

    About time..how long has Linux been doing this?

    about the time the geek discovered that compiling from source can be a royal pain in the butt -
    and that a solution had to be found for the non-technical end user.

    there remains the problem of programs that aren't packaged for your distribution - and the fragmentation of Linux into 200 or so odd distros can make OSX and Windows seem like models of shining sanity.
     

  10. Microsoft doesn't even do this internally! by SoonerSkeene · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've long wondered why Microsoft doesn't use their Windows Update/Microsoft Update infrastructure to offer updates for things like Windows Live Essentials, Sync, Mesh, any other technologies. Microsoft needs to institute a rule that every group at the company *must* use existing API's before inventing their own system... no duplicate functionality.

  11. Re:Really? by Voyager529 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh I'm fully aware of how awesome Synaptic/Yum/$PACKAGE_MANAGER is, but unfortunately I doubt that a full-blown software repo will ever happen on Windows, because ultimately, it will end up as one of two scenarios:

    1.) Microsoft requires all software added to the repo to have a specific digital certificate, and/or additional repos themselves will have to be signed and secured. These certificates will cost $$$$. Some indi dev will want to get their software in the repo, won't be able to afford it, and Microsoft will find itself in court faster than a hooker running out of church. That, or some shady software dealer will find itself being unsigned 'cuz someone at MS doesn't trust them or they sue...the details may change, but the bottom line is that if Microsoft discriminates who gets in and who doesn't, regardless of whether they have a legit reason to do so, they'll end up in court.

    2.) Microsoft allows any repo, signed or unsigned, to be added to the repo/update tree. Malware attacks shift from "click here to remove the 638 trojans our fake virus scanner found" to "click here to add our repo and install our fake virus scanner". Status quo remains unchanged, and the point of adding repos in the first place gets mitigated.

    I love the entire concept of package managers and would LOVE to see Synaptic on Windows. The problem is, the Windows platform is just too entrenched to make a package manager work there.