Before connecting to the Internet



New security vulnerabilities may have been discovered between the time the computer was built and configured by the manufacturer and the user setting up the computer for the first time.  The average time-to-exploitation on some networks for an unprotected computer is measured in minutes.

Standard advice is to download and install software patches as soon as possible after connecting a new computer to the Internet. However, since the background intruder scanning activity is pervasive, it may not be possible for the user to complete the download and installation of software patches before the vulnerabilities they are trying to fix are exploited.