We recently came across a useful entry on CNET’s Defensive Computing blog by Michael Horowitz we’d like to share with you.

As the headline suggests, Time to Update the Flash Player. Here’s How, the post explains how to go about updating Adobe's ubiquitous Flash Player, which is not as straightforward as one might expect. Downloading and installing the latest version of Flash is easy, but removing older versions—most of which contain potential security threats—is somewhat more involved, a process Horowitz guides readers through from start to finish.

Beyond updating your Flash player and removing possible security threats, the real payoff for us was Horowitz’s mention of the Secunia Online Software Inspector. Secunia, a Danish software security firm that helped expose major flaws in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, offers this valuable software free of charge to personal users, and it’s a real eye-opener.

Horowitz recommends running Secunia to ensure all older versions of Flash have been removed, and while it did so, it also detected a frightening number of outdated and potentially insecure versions of other software, including: Adobe Reader, iTunes, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, Real Player and least half-a-dozen older versions of Java.

Do yourself a favor and read the blog and run Secunia’s Software Inspector. You’ll probably be surprised at what it turns up.