Zero Day Exploits

For some hackers, news of a new software patch being released is like Christmas coming early. If they look hard enough, vulnerabilities may sometimes be found in new software patches; vulnerabilities that they may exploit before software vendors can discover and patch. Zero-day exploits are a lot more common than you might think.

Last year alone, 3 big zero—day exploits named Heartbleed, Shellshock and POODLE were discovered, along with numerous other vulnerabilities in common software like Internet Explorer.

Most recently, hackers found a zero-day exploit in Adobe’s Flash Player, another common

software found on many computers worldwide. Keeping your system safe from the looming threat of zero-day exploits is not easy; it requires you to constantly be in the know about new exploits, and quick action to ﬁx those exploits. Of course, sometimes the threat of vulnerabilities could come built into the very computer that you purchased, in which case, you’re more vulnerable.