Happy Halloween! Most of us take delight in spooky ghost stories, mummies, or vampires in late October. For those of us who most value data, however, our threats are a little more… technological. A zero day vulnerability is one of the most dangerous flaws software might ever harbor. The reason why is in the name: creators of the program have no idea that it exists, making it incredibly easy for hackers to discover and exploit the vulnerability before it has the opportunity to be fixed.

Meaning, it has been exactly zero days since the vulnerability has gone from found to exploited. What makes it the most sinister is that sometimes, due to the nature of the flaw, it can even take weeks or months to patch it! How can we prevent this bone chilling issue from rising from the grave? Unfortunately, zero day vulnerabilities don’t have an easy fix.

However, as always, we can always prevent these problems from affecting us directly by keeping our systems updated and patched. Install those updates, back up that data, and keep an anti-virus handy on your computer!