"More than ever, patch management is a critical part of IT operations. Enterprises cannot just rely on Microsoft's monthly patch updates for their entire patch maintenance strategy," says John Nielsen, a product manager at Fiberlink. Nielsen says the service also covers common applications from vendors like Apple, Adobe and Sun.
The case for cloud-based patch deployment
IT administrators are already aware of how dangerous it is not to keep security software and patches up to date, but Fiberlink is nonetheless hammering home the message about the perils of inadequate patch management because it sees a disconnect between the knowledge of the danger and actual IT practices.
At issue may be enterprise IT policies that only focus on operating system patches and fail to take into account Java, QuickTime and other common apps in the enterprise today. But when malware infects those applications, it can send a ripple throughout the enterprise. Fiberlink is pointing to industry research to bolster its case for keeping software and patches current.
For example, the Ponemon Institute reports that the cost of a data breach increased to $6.75 million in 2009. And the Quant Patch Management Survey reveals that 50 percent of enterprises do not have a formal patch-management process, 54 percent do not measure compliance with patch-management policies and 68 percent do not track patch time-to-deployment.
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