Patch Management Delivers Proven Business Benefits
Not every company can afford a complete IT team. By outsourcing strategic efforts such as patch management, your network is unlikely to suffer a data breach.
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Patch Management Inexpensively Improves Business Cybersecurity
Not every company can afford a complete IT team. By outsourcing strategic efforts such as patch management, your network is unlikely to suffer a data breach.
To say there is an excessive amount of talk about high-level cybersecurity strategies would be something of an understatement. If you are an entrepreneur or company decision-maker, it can be hard to know whether these trending possibilities are right for your organization. To the non-IT professional, they seem complicated and perhaps more costly than your revenue stream allows.
But the reality of working in the digital age is that the U.S. reportedly suffered so many data breaches in 2019 that 164 million records were compromised. General business hacks led the statistics with sensitive medical and health organizations running a close second. Both industries were stung by an increase in successful hacks from 2018 numbers.
That being said, it may be worthwhile for operations to hunker down to basics. Unlike many of the complicated methods that use a lot of head-spinning technical jargon, patch management ranks among the cybersecurity fundamentals. Sometimes it’s good to get back to basics and shore up your outfit’s foundation before implementing new ideas.
What Is Patch Management?
Even non-tech savvy businesspeople generally understand that things like firewalls and anti-virus software are necessary to deter hackers. A patch ranks among those tried-and-true protection measures.
A patch is simply a strand of code that can be integrated into existing software to correct or update a program. Many patches are developed to fix an inherent problem with the software, and these are also commonly used to bring anti-virus programs up to speed about the latest malware circulating tainted emails and websites.
But rather than uses these little fixed like bandages covering paper cuts all across your business network, patch management systematically integrates them in a logical and trackable fashion. The reason patch management has emerged as a needed business strategy is that software companies have flooded the market with a fix after fix. Take, for example, the recent Windows 10 patch updates. On March 3 alone, three such patches were released covering the following issues.
It’s easy to see that networks are tallying up more software patches in their servers than actual software applications. This is not to say that software giants are releasing patches willy-nilly. While some are fixes to unanticipated problems related to use, others are efforts to combat newly devised hacker schemes.
Why Do Businesses Need Patch Management?
With all those roving patches, keeping track helps a business know and prevent hackers from breaching your system. A patch management system articulates which software fixes were intended to eliminate glitches to make programs more user-friendly and which are hacker deterrents.
What sometimes startles managed IT cybersecurity professionals is the misconception that cybercriminals are mostly targeting massive corporations to get big paydays. Nothing could be further from the truth. The general public reads about and sees the impact of significant data breaches trending in the media. But hackers are more prone to find the mid-level company they assume will have subpar defenses. Cybercriminals like to call you the “low hanging fruit” and your Social Security number, bank accounts, and credit cards are easily leveraged or sold on the dark web.
By enlisting the help of a managed IT professional, entrepreneurs and decision-makers can cost-effectively have your systems reviewed and analyzed for patches. Knowing what you have will allow an IT professional to outline which essential updates you need to stay out of a hacker’s sightlines.
Routine patch updates and system cleansing reduces the chances a cybercriminal will spend the time and energy trying to breach your system or target you with malicious applications such as ransomware. Businesses need patch management because it ranks among the fundamental and cost-effective ways to keep cybersecurity up to date.