Awesome Secunia Tool for Updating Vulnerable Client-side Applications and Plugins

OK, this is a seriously awesome application. Secunia has a java applet-based tool on their site called the Secunia Software Inspector, which checks if various pieces of software are vulnerable. The full list of applications which are checked is available here. It reads like a veritable who's-who of clients which themselves get exploited, or plugins to clients which are the cause of exploitation that I write about over and over. I think this site is definitely the kind of thing which really needs to get sent around to all the relatives who have old crusty Windows machines and don't realize the various plugins which have probably been installed once and never updated and are now being used to hack them while they browse. While it's not a sort of one-click "patch all" kind of fix (that is it only tells you where to get the new version) it's ridiculously better than expecting people to wander around to all those sites looking for updates themselves.

In lieu of the traditional blogging trackback, I will say that I found this via this Security Fix blog post. I also saw the same thing as Brian Krebs from Security Fix, there was an old flash ActiveX control coexisting with the updated one. Also, I'm adding a lot of tags to this post because I want it to show up whenever someone navigates to a tag that has something this can check for. ;)