Integrating the Patch Management Process with Infrastructure Management
Author: Enterprise Networks & Servers

Holistic Patch Management

By now we are all familiar with the major challenges posed by patch management. The story goes something like this: The number of patches released by software vendors is increasing dramatically due to the continuous increase in the number of vulnerabilities uncovered in widely used software programs. Simultaneously, the time between announcement of a known vulnerability and the appearance of a threat targeting that vulnerability is rapidly diminishing, thereby significantly raising the pressure on IT administrators to quickly identify vulnerable systems, test new patches, and rapidly deploy them.

Finally, it doesn't help that worms and viruses, once released by their perverse creators, can now spread from machine to machine at a much faster rate than ever before, leveraging the "always on" connectivity that has dramatically changed both our consumer lifestyles and the way we conduct business globally.

The following facts illustrate the current situation.

* In 2003, Symantec documented 2,636 new vulnerabilities on all platforms - an average of seven per day. As a result, Gartner estimates that IT managers typically spend up to two hours per day managing patches, and that it costs about $300 per server to manually install a single patch.