FYI...

2010 Secunia Security Report
An alarming trend for end-user security
- http://secunia.com/blog/119
24 August 2010 - "Secunia has just released the first Secunia Half Year Security Report 2010*, elaborating on the evolution of the security threat posed by vulnerabilities, and providing projections for the 2010 vulnerability levels... overall 50% of the users are found to have at least 66 programs from more than 22 different vendors installed. To elaborate on this research we built a representative portfolio of the Top-50 most prevalent programs found on the average end-user PC, and examined the evolution and origin of the vulnerabilities affecting this portfolio since 2005. We found an alarming trend: in the two years from 2007 to 2009 the number of vulnerabilities affecting a typical end-user PC almost doubled to 420, and based on the data of the first six months of 2010 the number is expected to almost double again in 2010. In other words, during the first 6 months of 2010 Secunia published 380 vulnerabilities affecting the typical end-user PC, or 89% of the figures for the entire 2009... It is safe to assume that a large part of the users, focusing primarily on updating their Microsoft OS and programs, succumb on the enormous task and complexity of frequently patching all their 3rd party programs. However, by neglecting the risk of ubiquitous 3rd party programs, users risk being compromised by cyber-criminals every day, despite the deployment of other security measures..."
* http://secunia.com/gfx/pdf/Secunia_H...eport_2010.pdf