Our (in)Secure Web: Understanding Update Behavior of Websites and Its Impact on Security

Software updates take an essential role in keeping IT environments secure. If service providers delay or do not install updates, it can cause unwanted security implications for their environments. This paper conducts a large-scale measurement study of the update behavior of websites and their utilized software stacks. Across 18 months, we analyze over 5.6M websites and 246 distinct client- and server-side software distributions. We found that almost all analyzed sites use outdated software.

软件更新在保障IT环境安全方面发挥着至关重要的作用。若服务提供商延迟或不安装更新，可能会对其环境造成不必要的安全隐患。本文针对网站及其所用软件栈的更新行为开展了一项大规模测量研究。在18个月的时间里，我们分析了超过560万个网站以及246种不同的客户端和服务器端软件分发版本。研究发现，几乎所有被分析的网站都使用过时软件。