New cyber threats are emerging daily. Cyber Essentials Certification is a great way of making sure you have all the basics cyber security controls covered. It requires 5 key cyber security controls to be in place. This series of articles focuses on each control individually. Today we are looking at patch management.
For an introduction to Cyber Essentials please visit our previous blog here.
What is patch management?
Modern businesses often use a various of devices including tablets, smartphones, computers and laptops to operate successfully. It is important that both the hardware and software on all devices is kept up to date. This process is often known as patching or patch management. Patching protects your data against low level cyber-attacks and should be a core element of any IT security system. Manufactures frequently release updates which add new features along with fixing any identified security vulnerabilities. Effective and timely patch management is essential to adequately protect your data. Keeping your systems up to date with security patches and software updates is absolutely critical in the fight against todays cyber criminals and hackers.
What can happen when patches are not applied?
Software on computers and network devices have weaknesses which can be exploited by cyber criminals. The high profile Wannacry and Petya attacks both exploited vulnerabilities which had been identified by Microsoft. They had actually issued patches months prior to the attack. The infected computers were those were the patch had not been applied.
It’s worth noting that all IT has a limited life span, when a manufacturer stops issuing patches the software is then unsupported and will not meet many regulatory compliance standards or the criteria for Cyber Essentials. Mostly importantly your systems will no longer be fully protected. At this point you will need to upgrade to ensure your data remains secure.
Patch Management as a Managed Service
Patch Management as a Managed Service is by far the simplest and most effective way to ensure everything is kept up to date. Red Mosquito’s remote monitoring and management platform can monitor your patch status remotely. We apply needed patches as soon as they are available, safely reboot critical servers and troubleshoot any update issues that arise. This puts the security and stability of your company in the hands of trained Red Mosquito staff. We manage and implement the whole patch process from end to end, even taking care of rebooting your machines out of office hours to minimise disruption and with our comprehensive reporting abilities you can be kept up to date at any point.
Contact us today for more information on Patch Management and Cyber Essentials.
We provide IT support across Glasgow, Edinburgh and central Scotland.
