Many software developers and IT teams find patch management tedious and time-consuming. However, patch management plays a critical role in keeping external attacks at bay, ensuring your software and networks run smooth, and helps continue the software development cycle without disruption. But before we dive further into why you need an efficient patch management process, let’s understand what patches and patch management is. Patches are essentially software code(s) that help fix and repair broken functionality, add further new functionality, or fix any security holes or other bugs in software. Patch management is the process of detecting, tracking, downloading, installing, and reporting those patches and making sure that they are running in the most efficient way possible, without disrupting anything.
Providers of managed IT services in Ontario like Pathway Communications have, over the years, helped multiple businesses develop a solid patch management policy. Having a patch management process is a critical part of the vulnerability management process that organizations can’t afford to neglect. This gives clear instructions to IT teams to handle security patch rollouts like a well-oiled machine.
Efficient Patch Management Is Critical. Here’s Why.
- Insecure Software
To err is human and software are products of the human brain. Unintended flaws and loopholes can be found, which would make one vulnerable to malicious viruses and hackers.
- Outdated Antivirus
Outdated antivirus will not detect new threats that have emerged discovered since its last update, thereby making your systems vulnerable. More rigorous and efficient patch management is needed to keep antivirus updates, especially when data breaches have become more frequent after work from home became the norm during the pandemic.
- Future Savings
Data breaches can be expensive, especially when you have no plan in place on how to manage the systems after a breach has occurred. What if the breach had occurred due to a lack of patch management? This could have been an easy fix, but now it is too late. If you had a policy in place, you could have identified the bug at the right time and patched it. What’s more? Your patch management policies can also include a plan of action for handling a data breach in such instances.
Best Practices for Patch Management
- Keep a Record of the Most Common Vulnerabilities
By keeping a record of the most common vulnerabilities and your IT assets and systems that are most at risk or have often been compromised, you can always refer back to it. This will act as a guide and help you prioritize your actions when needed.
- Update Your Inventory and Software Regularly
All inventory data and software should be updated regularly – critical updates can help flag or fix any security flaws that may exist. Managed IT support service providers such as we provide 24×7 support to ensure your systems are up to date.
- Maintaining and Evaluating Patches Regularly
The work doesn’t stop after a patch has been deployed. Maintenance of these patches is an important part of any IT support solution. Regularly evaluating and monitoring its performance is vital for the security of any business, and it must be ongoing.
Patch management helps IT teams and employees of your organization avoid sleepless nights and disrupted systems. Managed IT support service providers will help your organization address patch management and patch management processes that check all the boxes. Pathway Communications offers efficient solutions to ensure that all of your patch management process steps are covered without slowing down development and everyday work.
