Patch Management is a Process

Patch management is often overlooked in organisations where day-to-day IT tasks fall by the wayside, but these updates are often necessary to close security gaps in software or firmware.

Nearly every aspect of your IT environment relies on timely patches to stay secure and operational. Operating systems, applications, network equipment, mobile devices, and IoT devices must all be updated over time. Failure to keep up with patch management leaves your organisation open to cybersecurity exploits and can lead to performance issues or downtime.

While it’s possible to manually patch devices and applications, this is a tedious and risky way to approach the task. Patch management should be addressed with a process that is security-focused and minimises the potential for human error. 

• All IT assets should be inventoried and scanned regularly to ensure that new patches are quickly discovered and applied
• Asset Management comes into play, as it affords a current view of operating systems, version types, and IP addresses that exist, along with their geographic locations and owners.
• A long-term effort should be made to standardise device operating systems (types and versions) to improve efficiency of patch management.
• Patches should be applied as soon as they’re available to minimise the risk of exploits. This means that versions and fixes need to be constantly monitored.
• Organisations should test patches in a sandbox environment before pushing them through to the entire organisation to prevent conflicts with other software.
• The tested patch should then be applied throughout the IT environment without delay.

Why are Patches So Important?

• Security: Patches often fix vulnerabilities in your software that leave it susceptible to cyberattack
• System uptime: Keeping updates current ensures that your software is up-to-date and optimised 
• Compliance: Most regulatory standards for data protection require timely, documented patch management
• Feature improvements: Patches will often include new features or performance upgrades that maximise the value received from the product

Let Orbital10 Take Care of Your Critical Updates

As you can see, proper patch management can be a challenge for any organisation. Smaller businesses often lack the time or knowhow to ensure every device and application is up to date. When a business scales up and the number of devices and complexity of their IT environment increase, the burden of patch management grows even more cumbersome.

Our team of IT experts can shoulder this burden for you, using the latest monitoring and patch management technologies to ensure that your IT assets are always up to date. By putting patch management in our hands, you’ll enjoy greater security and a more stable IT environment while saving valuable time for your more pressing tasks.  Give us a call >