What Is Wrong With This Patching?

About this interactive

The Patch Management lesson explains why patching on time matters with the vulnerability life cycle. Software ships with a flaw nobody knows about. Someone discovers it. It is published, and from then on every attacker can see it. A patch is released. The time between the patch's release and your installing it is the danger window you control, and good patching keeps it short. The lesson then names five problems it sees in real businesses. Timeliness: patches get installed, but late, so the danger window stays open for months. Ad hoc patching: nobody manages it. Users decide for themselves whether and when to update, and nothing tracks what was installed. The fix is a managed, enforced system. Consistency: there is a process, but it is not applied evenly, so the same patch is on some machines and not on others. Efficiency: patching happens, but in a wasteful way, with people doing by hand what a tool should do. Completeness: the operating system is patched, but applications on the same machines are missed. Consistency and completeness are easy to mix up. Consistency asks which machines got the patch. Completeness asks which software on a machine got patched. The lesson's fixes: enforce patching on end-user devices, document the process, and follow the documentation, so it becomes consistent and can be improved.

What you'll learn

Diagnose a patching process by its deficiency: timeliness, ad hoc patching, consistency, efficiency, or completeness
Explain why a delay between a patch's release and its installation widens the window in which a published vulnerability can be exploited

Aligned to

CompTIA Security+

4.3 Explain various activities associated with vulnerability management.

Key terms

Patch Management: The process of acquiring, testing, and installing software updates to fix vulnerabilities and improve functionality.
Vulnerability Lifecycle: The stages a vulnerability passes through from its introduction in software through discovery, public disclosure, patch release, and remediation.
Zero-Day: A vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor and has no available patch at the time of exploitation.
Exploit: A piece of software or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability to gain unauthorized access or cause harm.

Topics

Patch Management Vulnerability Management Interactive Categorize

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