Around 57% of data breaches are attributed to poor patch management. This stat clearly attributes to the need for patch management to keep the organization safe by mitigating security vulnerabilities. Without the right patch management software, it becomes difficult for organizations to identify critical updates. Only implementing a patch management process is not enough for any organization to win the game.

The second decade of the 21st century witnessed an unprecedented paradigm shift in the educational sphere. With the onset of the pandemic, conventional ideas of an educational institution gave way to a far modernized and on-the-go approach. Joining class and listening to teachers’ lectures on Zoom or through Microsoft Teams is now the new norm.

A ServiceNow study carried out by the Ponemon Institute reports, “An alarming 57% of cyberattack victims report that their breaches could have been prevented by installing an available patch.” Patch management is the process of organizing, testing, and applying patches to your organization’s assets.

Software patching is the important process of deploying updates. These updates are often released to resolve security vulnerabilities and exploits that could lead to a cyberattack. In fact, many high-profile cyberattacks could have been minimized or avoided altogether if not for unpatched software -- which is why patch management is a critical part of cybersecurity best practices and compliance. As cybersecurity regulations continue to roll out, new standards are being created for patch management.

There’s no doubt that patching is tedious work. However, CNP technologies’ article on the importance of patching points out that “74% of companies say they simply can’t patch fast enough because the average time to patch is 102 days.” Understanding the patch management lifecycle is the first step that organizations take towards optimizing patching processes and creating a more secure IT environment.

Patching is an essential function within any MSP or IT department, so maintaining a successful patch management process is a top priority for organizations. A patch management audit allows organizations to analyze and adjust their patching processes to make them more effective. Use this patch management audit checklist to evaluate and improve your current patch management process.

“Some things age better with time; unfortunately, the software is not one of them,” iLink Digital explains in their patch management review. Whenever software malfunctions or becomes outdated, enterprise patch management systems come to the rescue. In this overview, we’ll uncover the challenges, benefits, and case studies for enterprise patch management.

Patch management has become an essential part of IT and a critical part of ensuring an enterprise’s safety and efficiency. Why are these seemingly trivial updates so important? In short, because companies without an effective patch management solution are at a massively increased risk of cyberattack. There are other reasons why patching hardware and software is important.

Welcome to part 2 of our Patch Management Basics series. In part 1—Learn patch management—we covered what patch management is, how it’s different to vulnerability management, and what the components are that make a good patch management program. In this article, we’re going to go a step deeper and explore the features that make up the best patch management solutions.