by Jonathan Dale, Fiberlink

On Cnetnews.com I saw the following headline “Adobe reports ‘critical’ flaw in Flash, Acrobat.” Unlike the typical viewer comments, I immediately thought about IT workers reading this, and what their reactions would be. I thought about the person who actually has to do something about this rather than argue why some Apple products are so much better since they don’t have to worry about Flash. So what about the folks in IT who need to understand and address the impact?

I hope that they have an “Easy” button. Kind of like the Staples “Easy Button” commercials. You know, something they can magically press which will provide them with fixes for all their devices which are affected by the flaw.

The first step is understanding “who” is affected, and I think it is the most important one. (After that you can figure out what you need to do to fix it.)

Here is an example of an “Easy” button and what a solid Business Intelligent reporting system can do to simplify an announcement like Flash’s critical flaw:

It takes you about 30 seconds to log into your inventory management reporting system. Another 5 seconds to type in “Adobe Reader” and click ”Search.” You’re then presented with a report which shows you all the versions of Adobe Reader across your device base, and how many devices you have with each version. Within a total of 35 seconds you now know who is affected and who is not; what is important and what isn’t.

It is really that simple if you have the right systems. If you don’t, I’m not sure how much time you’re spending. How much time would this take you to analyze your environment across all devices for this latest flaw?

If you don’t have an easy button that can do it as quickly as I made it, check out what MaaS360 can do for you.