Are Software Updates Useless Against Advanced Persistent Threats?

Fabio Massacci; Giorgio Di Tizio

doi:10.1145/3571452

Are Software Updates Useless Against Advanced Persistent Threats?

Fabio Massacci, Giorgio Di Tizio

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Short survey › Academic › peer-review

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Abstract

A dilemma worth Shakespeare's Hamlet is increasingly haunting companies and security researchers: ``to update or not to update, this is the question``. From the perspective of recommended common practices by software vendors the answer is unambiguous: you should keep your software up-to-date. But is common sense always good sense? We argue it is not.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	31-33
Number of pages	3
Journal	Communications of the ACM
Volume	66
Issue number	1
Early online date	20 Dec 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3571452
Publication status	Published - Jan 2023

Funding

Funders	Funder number
Not added	952647, 830929

Keywords

cs.SE

VU Research Profile

Connected World
Governance for Society

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1145/3571452

2306.07355v1Submitted manuscript, 640 KB
Are Software Updates Useless Against Advanced Persistent ThreatsFinal published version, 812 KBLicence: Article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act

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Cite this

@article{28cbd4125c2c485d91fec72f92ba1311,

title = "Are Software Updates Useless Against Advanced Persistent Threats?",

abstract = "A dilemma worth Shakespeare's Hamlet is increasingly haunting companies and security researchers: ``to update or not to update, this is the question``. From the perspective of recommended common practices by software vendors the answer is unambiguous: you should keep your software up-to-date. But is common sense always good sense? We argue it is not.",

keywords = "cs.SE",

author = "Fabio Massacci and Tizio, \{Giorgio Di\}",

year = "2023",

month = jan,

doi = "10.1145/3571452",

language = "English",

volume = "66",

pages = "31--33",

journal = "Communications of the ACM",

issn = "0001-0782",