ALL your systems Patched, Updated and Protected — Always
Businesses these days have a strong need to simplify and automate patch management. Vulnerabilities are the easiest way for hackers to gain entry into critical systems. And with thousands of new vulnerabilities discovered, it’s increasingly difficult to focus on the ones that really matter. For example, out of the 800 newly identified vulnerabilities today, which ones need your urgent attention? And are you able to separate the benign vulnerabilities from the potentially malignant?
Fight the second-leading cause of security incidents
Patch management makes for an important part of vulnerability management. The ability to discover, prioritize, and remediate threats in today’s cybersecurity climate, is a business imperative. To illustrate, the surge in high-profile cyber attacks over the last couple of years has made cybersecurity the main reason to deploy patches. But out-of-date systems aren’t the only ones under threat. In 2021, approximately 29% of the security incidents involved unpatched software vulnerabilities.
The Broken Way — Part-time Patching
Patching and upgrading systems is a burden even for organizations with dedicated IT staff. It’s tedious, never-ending, unrewarding, but highly essential work. For example, a single patch cycle can take anywhere from a few weeks to months to complete. Here are few more problems with part-time patching that may cause your system to be highly vulnerable to attacks —
- Working buried under a backlog of missing patches
- Not knowing what’s actually in the asset inventory
- Incurring financial liabilities, potential fines due to non-compliant patch management
- Lack of visibility on systems from end-point devices to the servers
- Poor cyber hygiene that leads to system failures like incompatible hardware issues with a patch, or a patch that installs well but breaks something else.
A broken scenario would typically involve being hassled by security stakeholders to demonstrate that systems are presently and continuously up to date.This high-pressure demand is due to the constant risk of disruption from a preventable security breach that is too great to ignore and simply unacceptable. The winners are IT leaders who proactively minimize their biggest and most preventable vulnerabilities.
The New Way — Patch Management Simplified
As the organization grows and day-to-day operations become complex, managing your interconnected systems can become unwieldy and unpredictable. You will encounter problems such as — Which systems should you patch first? Your software stack or your vast network of distributed devices? Can you be proactive or automate patch management? Patch Management as a Service will not only provide answers to these questions but will also monitor and automate a process for regular and effective patching or system updates.
Programmatic, Yet Flexible
UDT follows a programmatic, yet flexible delivery approach that is adaptable to your in-house activities and constantly changing environment. It’s a flexible service design that allows us to adapt the solution to your current resources, processes, and policies as they change over time. Below are just some of the key features and benefits of UDT’s Patch Management as a Service —
- Monitor and continuously updating all the systems in your IT environment including:
- Workstations, laptops, and company-issued mobile devices
- Network devices including routers, switches, and APs
- On-premises and remote physical servers and virtual machines.
- Update third-party software applications running on all systems and devices
- Manage the end-to-end patching process including tracking available patches for published vulnerabilities, testing prior to rollout, post-patch audits and resolution for patch failures or incompatibility issues
- Utilize centralized patch management tools that support a full-range of Windows, Chrome, Linux, MacOS, iOS and Android as well as hypervisors by VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, and others.
- Facilitate a structured onboarding process to identify and align to your change management process, regulatory and compliance requirements, business policies and priority processes and users, and desired areas for improvement
- Conduct regular quarterly reviews to identify opportunities for optimization, revision of scope based on new, outdated or EOL systems and requirements.
Visibility to the Full Cycle
UDT provides intelligent reporting through our UDT SmartAnalytics for visibility to the full patching cycle with proactive information and insights
- Access standard on-demand and scheduled reports for key stakeholders
- Review policy and program compliance through executive dashboards and reports
- View device inventories by type, vendor, status and other attributes.
- Monitor and continuously patch ALL the systems and applications across their IT landscape
- Adapt to an evolving IT environment, new compliance requirements and emerging vulnerabilities
- Have visibility to the full patching cycle with proactive information and insights into their assets and status