An updated computer is much less vulnerable to hacking. And such a computer performs better as well. Not only that, the more applications you have running on such a computer, the more holes in its security that the bad guys can exploit to either infect it or target those who are close to you. Yet, most of us fail to do things as simple as updating our computer’s BIOS, our router’s firmware, and the applications that are on our system. Many of us even fail to do regular backups. But that’s a different story altogether, and I’ve covered that many times before. By procrastinating about these things, we essentially invite hackers and con artists to exploit us. Today, I want to talk about the benefits of updating your computer BIOS and your router’s firmware. Both of which technical writers like myself very seldom talk about. If your computer’s BIOS is not up to date, you may not even even realize that your computer is much less secure than it should be. For example, over the weekend, I helped a good friend update her computer’s BIOS. She’s a wonderful friend. Although she knows a lot about FB, she had no idea that the BIOS she had on her computer was several revisions behind the latest version that the computer manufacturer had on its website. In fact, the BIOS she had on her computer was three years behind. By upgrading her BIOS, she acquired the ability to set up a BIOS password that’s effective. Her previous BIOS version didn’t offer the ability to do so. Just two weeks ago, the computers on my home network were losing their Internet connections willy-nilly. After doing the usual things to troubleshoot such a problem, including resetting both our high speed modem and having the ISP reset the modem from their end, we were being quite inconvenienced by these interruptions. My wife even had to go work away from home for a while because our Internet connection had momentarily become so unreliable. I checked for updates on our router’s manufacturer’s site. Lo and behold, there was one. I have no clue if the manufacturer had informed me and the email went into my junk mail. But I upgraded the firmware and since then, our Internet connections are as steady as they used to be. Our children were very happy when the lost connections stopped. They were getting quite frustrated with losing their Internet connection in the middle of the games that they were playing. And, of course, they were making it harder for me to focus on writing my book. While I was at it, I decided to check for a software upgrade on our cable modem firmware as well. After all, we’re paying for a fast connection; so, we might as well get the fastest speed that we can get. The SB6121 from Motorola that I use did not have bonding on the upstream, which involves combining several channels in order to get the best performance from the modem. That led me to realize that at one point I inadvertently swapped the cable to my router with one that’s limited to 10 Mbps. By switching to the right cable (one that allowed connection at one Gbps), all of a sudden my modem was then able to use channel bonding on the upstream, which produced much greater overall performance. Had I not decided to check for a firmware upgrade on the modem, I might not even have realized the huge difference in performance that a minor oversight caused. To determine whether you need to upgrade your computer’s BIOS, first you need to find out what BIOS version that’s on your computer. The quickest way to do that is to click on your Start Button, type the word “system,” and then click on “System Information” from the search result. You will find your BIOS version listed on the information displayed on the next panel. The next step is to navigate to your computer manufacturer’s site to check out the latest firmware for your computer. Before you navigate there, you should make sure to note your computer’s model number and the specific operating system you’re running on it from the System Information panel. If you click on “File” in the System Information menu bar and choose the export option, you’ll be amazed at the long text file that the computer can spit out. You can also print out a copy of that report or a portion thereof if you want to as well. You would then need to download the firmware upgrade and read the readme file that’s within the package in order to perform the BIOS upgrade procedure on your computer. BIOS upgrades are usually downloaded in zip compressed files. The files must be uncompressed by using a zip utility (they’re mostly free) and then the proper version of the executable or bat file must be executed on the computer to perform the procedure. The user must go to the command prompt (search for “cmd” on the start menu panel) to implement the procedure. Once the files have been uncompressed, it’s a good idea to search for the file that’s to be executed and use the properties tab to determine the exact path to the file, for without knowing the proper path, it would be more difficult to run the command at the command prompt. If the path is very long, copying the path within the properties tab, and then sending this to an email account or another account that can be accessed via another device could be useful while trying to run the proper file at the to command prompt, although technically you could have the command prompt running on a non-maximized window, which would make it easier to type the right path where the firmware upgrade is to be found. As an alternative, the proper file can be copied to the drive’s root directory so that specifying a very long path at the command line is not necessary. Once you complete the firmware upgrade successfully, your system information will reflect the new BIOS version that’s on your system. Upgrading the firmware on your router involves the same process. The moral of my story is that it really pays to check for upgrades on not just all applications on your computer, but for firmware on the BIOS, router, and cable modem as well. As far as keeping the applications on your computer up to date, consider using Secunia PSI, a free application that actually checks with different software vendors whether they have patches and updates for their software.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 23:21:43 +0000
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