An Introduction To Patch Management

What Is IT Infrastructure & What Does It Involve?

By: Sam Geary, Marketing Executive

Patch management is the distribution and regular updating of software. These are necessary to correct software errors, also known as vulnerabilities or bugs. It is an essential part of any organisation’s software management that needs to be carefully planned and monitored.

What Is Patch Management?

Patch management is a system that updates your software to keep your cyber security up to date and ensure your organisation’s systems are protected. They can:

Correct a specific bug or flaw in your software.

Improve an operating system or application’s general stability.

Fix a security vulnerability.

Patch updates need to have scheduled regular patch management, weekly as a minimum, if an organisation doesn’t have this in place the risk of cyber-attacks increases.

Areas that need patches include operating systems, applications, and network equipment.

After the release of a piece of software, a patch can be used to fix it, keeping your software safe from exploitation.

Why Is Patch Management Important?

Patch management will help maintain the performance of systems and sometimes is used to bring the software up to date to make it compatible with the latest hardware. Patches keep networks and computers reliable and up to date, maintaining their features and functionality which is important to the user.

Patches are used to correct security vulnerabilities when a software supplier finds a security risk. Hackers and malware creators know about security problems and actively look for unpatched systems, which is why patch management is important.

With the constant rise in cyber-attacks, organisations need to show compliance required by regulatory bodies, like the Cyber Essentials scheme. Patch management also shows adherence to compliance regulations.

What Are The Risks Of Not Patching Software?

Emerging cyber threats are beyond the control of any organisation. Poor or lack of patch management is one of the reasons that the larger cyber-attacks are successful. Cyber-attacks cause many problems for organisations and every year, malware attacks cost millions of pounds.

There are lots of risks if you don’t patch your software against hackers or larger cyber-attacks:

Any vulnerability in your system can be exploited by hackers.
Failing to patch can lead to damaged software, loss of data, and identity theft.
A successful cyber-attack can cause devastating financial loss.
The costs of recovering from an attack will far exceed the cost of a patch management system.
Your system without patch management will mean your systems will become outdated, solving issues then gets harder, leading to a loss of productivity.
Lack of compliance will become an issue with regulatory bodies.

Setting up a patch management process has several important stages to follow to implement successfully:

Identify devices, operating systems, and applications.
Decide which software versions to optimise.
Prioritise which IT assets are at risk.
Plan the implementation and appoint someone responsible for it.
Record test patches and evaluate results.

These are all vital steps in the process which require someone with expertise in IT to bring forward. This is a capability that not all organisations have. Outsourcing to an established company like PCS Systems solves the problem.

PCS Systems will build a patch management system to match your requirements, apply regular updates, reduce vulnerability, and keep OS and applications updated with scheduled patching.

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