With all the technology we have today, installing software updates has become a near-daily, full-time activity. Patch management for large-scale enterprise IT systems can be one of the most stressful parts of an IT professional’s job. In today’s large and evolving IT networks where many new services are going online every day and software components are flying straight from the supply chain to the network, having the right vulnerability management program is critical for ensuring secure environments.
Understanding the Patch Management Process
Tripwire's Vulnerability and Exposure Research Team (VERT) have tracked vulnerabilities and patch releases for years, and the magnitude of patches alone makes it obvious that many organizations are having trouble keeping up. Installing a patch might sound easy. To a casual computer owner, it requires only a simple click of a button. However, in a business environment, patch installation difficulty varies across platforms, ranging from simple to complex scenarios involving carefully orchestrated sequences of events. Patch installation difficulty is not the only variable in this equation. Patch testing is another critical piece of the puzzle and, along with scale, is one of the more challenging aspects of patch management in the modern world of enterprise IT.
1. Refine Your Pre-Deployment Patch Management Procedures
Enterprises cannot go about installing patches blindly without understanding the potential impacts of the change brought about by a patch. Patches have a history of breaking things, and when things break in the enterprise, chaos ensues. With the rapid discovery of vulnerabilities, and the subsequent emergency patch releases, most organizations do not have ample time to fully test patches in their environment before deployment. This is a recipe for trouble.
Refining your pre-deployment patch management procedures ahead of time will help you “measure twice, cut once” and make sure the patches you implement stay, do what they were intended to do, and not negatively impact surrounding systems.
2. Be Wary of Patch Fatigue
An organization’s ability to thoroughly test patches depends on scale and resources. Virtualization and orchestration technologies, coupled with good patch management and vulnerability management software, can help organizations create environments that enable extensive patch testing.
Still, testing every possible configuration is hard for any organization. As you scale, it becomes impossible. More nodes mean an increase in the number of scenarios that need to be tested. Those considerations can quickly spiral out of control. This leads us to the following conclusion: Patch testing is currently done on a best-effort basis, and as with most software-based testing, it only covers a small portion of the overall “state space” of test cases.
An important question to ask is, “Will this scenario work in the future as more and more systems become highly interconnected?” This will help you prioritize your time and test patches with the most significant factors in mind.
3. Explore Patch Management Best Practices for Emerging IT
The Internet of Things (IoT), the Industrial IoT, cyber-physical systems, and all things cloud are pushing the envelope of scale with an exponential explosion of connected devices coming online, including virtual machines and APIs. With lengthy and often dubious software supply chain origins, it is critical that each piece of software be vetted for security and updates before being allowed to interact with the other services. It’s like showering before entering a public pool.
Once vulnerabilities have been identified and patched, swift and regular patch management processes should be followed to ensure the ongoing reliability of those assets as they go throughout their lifecycles and updates occur.
Fortra’s Solutions for Patch Management
Fortra’s vulnerability management solutions combine to present a full-spectrum patch management program. In regulated environments, patching requires regulation and is an auditable control. Working with Fortra takes organizations from patch selection to eventual audit, equipping organizations to:
- Simplify patching and allowlisting.
- Prove compliance (and configuration) to approved baselines.
- Remove an unnecessary potential burden from GRC and security teams by ensuring all assets are properly configured, and all patches work.
Patching reduces the potential attack surface and helps maintain system uptime. It protects your vulnerability management and offensive security investments, as resources spent discovering and solving the problem aren’t double spent solving the solution.
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