This is the seventh in a series about the concept of Zero Trust, which means in the IT sense that you trust nothing and always verify everything surrounding and connected to your network. Today’s discussion will be on software patching. 

Software Patching

Software patching is a neccesity because no person who writes code is perfect and hackers are actively looking for these mistakes. The hackers find the mistakes and then develop ways of using these to exploit the software, computer, or whatever else they can gain access to. The only way to combat both the mistakes and the exploits is to discover them before the hackers do and patch the hole in the software. This patch can however lead to unforseen consequences to the software, so a plan for testing and deployment of patches is needed to avoid unexpected downtime to businesses.Here are some questions to ask:

• Do you know all of the hardware and software on your network?
• Do you check for hardware, operating system, and other software regularly?
• How do you check for updates, patches, or upgrades to software?
• How do you install these patches? Is it automated?
• Are these patches tested before installation?
• What happens if a patch causes problems?
• Do you have a log of all installed updates?
• Are any systems or software on your network no longer supported for updates?

If your company is going to use full disk encryption or has compliance requirements that you need consulting for, then contact us for assistance.