Updated October 2026 to our current guidance. The original reporting date is unchanged.
Your computers get updates, and that mostly works. Here’s the part those updates were never built to cover, and how to count it on your own machines.
Count What’s on Your Computers →See how many programs each Windows PC has, how many are current, and how many need updating. No credit card needed.
You pay someone to handle updates, or you run them yourself. Windows installs its fixes on a schedule, and that part mostly works.
Windows Update never touches third-party software. The PDF reader, the file compression tool, and the video-call app each update on their own schedule, or not at all. So who has been checking those?
In this article
Hey folks! On June 12, 2026, the U.S. Commerce Department ordered the AI company Anthropic to turn off access to its two most capable models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for foreign nationals, including the company’s own staff. (source)
The reporting at the time tied the order to how well the models found flaws in software, and the National Law Review described it as the first export control placed on an AI model for national security reasons. (source)
I’ll leave the national-security argument to others. For a business owner the useful point is smaller and more practical. Finding flaws in software keeps getting faster. When a maker learns about a flaw, it ships a fix. That fix only does you any good once it’s installed on your computers.
Most businesses I talk to handle updates the same way. Windows updates itself, or someone you pay approves the updates and restarts the machines. Antivirus runs in the background. That’s a reasonable setup, and mostly it works.
Windows Update never touches third-party software. It keeps Windows current. It doesn’t update WinRAR, 7-Zip, the PDF reader, Zoom, or VLC. Each of those has its own updater, or none. Nobody did anything wrong here. That’s simply where Windows Update’s job ends.
So who has been checking the rest?
A typical business computer has dozens of programs besides Windows. Some of the flaws being used today were published in 2018 and 2019, in programs that are still installed on plenty of machines, because nothing ever told anyone they were out of date.
Try this before you read further. Guess how many programs are installed on the computer you use most, and write the number down. Then count them. Most people I ask guess low.
Most owners assume their setup covers the whole machine. It’s a fair assumption. You built a business to serve customers, and keeping a list of every program’s version number was never part of the job.
I’ve spent 35+ years watching how these attacks work. The pattern I see most often is plain: a program nobody updated, carrying a flaw whose fix had been out for a long time. Seeing that list is the first step, and it’s the part we made simple.
Here is what happens when you click the button.
If the second number is higher than you expected, that’s common. You don’t have to be able to do this. We’ll do it with you.
The scan is on us. If you want step-by-step instructions afterward, that’s a paid report, and you’ll see the price before you decide.
It only looks and reports. It doesn’t change anything on your computer. No credit card needed to start.
Your results are yours, and we don’t sell your data. If you buy anything later, refunds are available within the first 30 days.
Everyone starts with the scan. Most people stop there, and that’s a fine outcome. If you want more, there are two other ways we work.
Run it on each Windows computer. It counts what is installed: how many programs are current and how many need updating. No credit card needed. The scan is on us. If you want step-by-step instructions afterward, that’s a paid report, and you’ll see the price before you decide.
Count What’s on Your Computers →For a business that gets asked to prove its security, by a bigger customer, an insurer, or an auditor. We scan your computers every month, a person reviews the results, and you get a prioritized report you can hand over. Whoever runs your IT keeps doing the work; you get a dated record of where the computers stand. Up to 100 computers, from $4,500 a year.
See how Second Opinion works →If you would rather have the work done for you: the updates, the monitoring, and the problems when they come up. Every business is set up differently, so we scope it in a conversation.
Start a conversation →Good. Keep both. Antivirus looks for known malicious files. Your IT person keeps Windows and the servers running. Updating every other program on every computer is a separate job, and it’s worth asking whether anyone has been given it.
The scan answers that with two counts. If everything is current, the report says so.
The Reveal Scan counts what is installed on each Windows PC: how many programs are current and how many need updating. Read-only, no credit card needed.
Count What’s on Your Computers →The scan is on us. If you want step-by-step instructions afterward, that’s a paid report, and you’ll see the price before you decide.
If you run it and never speak to us again, that’s a fine outcome.
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