Patch management and the CIOs role
hspace=3 alt="Outsourcing Policy" vspace=3 align=right
src="http://www.e-janco.com/images/Outsourcing_policy.gif" width=85
height=110>
alt="Patch Management" align=right
src="http://www.e-janco.com/images/Patch-Management.gif" width=85
height=110>Keeping all of an organization’s endpoints patched and up-to-date
is crucial to staying ahead of the latest exploits and vulnerabilities. Patch management
typically automates the repetitive processes of maintaining current
vulnerability information, assessing vulnerabilities relevant to an
organizations different software and hardware, downloading the appropriate
patch executables, remediating endpoint vulnerabilities, and verifying
successful patch deployment.
alt="Patch Management" align=middle
src="http://www.e-janco.com/images/Patch-Management-Timeline.png">
The first important step in a patch management operation is to know when
there is a need for a patch to be made. A patch management policy should have a
section detailing what must be done to ensure the security personnel know what
to do in this situation. Patch scanning can be one option or monitoring the
media. Patch scanning is obviously the most convenient method and the least
time-consuming as in most cases it can be setup and left to work autonomously.
However, even then your monitoring policy should still include monitoring of
current events because it is not always the case that a patch is released before
a vulnerability is made known to the world. Sometimes the vulnerability is
disclosed before a vendor has had time to develop a patch and it is imperative
that when this happens your security team acts on it just the
same.
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