Security? Poodles? Sandworms? Here we go again.

If you have any passing interest in computer security, you have noticed a few announcements go by.

If you don't, you may think it is overwhelming.

Yes, and Yes.

If you are worried, there's a simple solution.  No matter what the computer, no matter what the operating system - make sure you are up to date.

Most home users are set up "from the factory" to automatically get updates.  This is true on Windows and on Mac OSX.  My Linux computers pop up a friendly sunburst to say it's got updates too.

In both cases this will solve these two problems.

Poodle - Make sure your browser is up to date.  Windows update will fix this.  It is a low level problem that is more of a headache for systems administrators. So it's not a major headache for most people.

The long description that 99 percent of us can skip is that it's a bug that Google has found in the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) version 3 that is seriously out of date.  It shouldn't be used at this point anyway, but some folks haven't updated that.

Sandworm - It's a worm that goes after Powerpoint files.  Since Windows machines are set up to ask you if you want to open the file, don't.  If your computer asks you to open anything with a ".INF" extension, don't.  That is how the worm will propagate.

How to fix it?  Home users, make sure you go through your Windows Update.  It's a windows problem.  But anyone else should be running the most up to date version of their operating systems that they can.  If their operating system is no longer supported, it's best that you upgrade as best you can.  No more XP for you.

While you are at it, make sure your virus protection is up to date and you may want to just force a run of a full scan.  You never know what is running around on your computers these days and it is just good practice to do this once in a while.