Patch management and client resilience (page 1 of 2)

Keeping computers updated with the latest software patches is essential to protect company data from worm- or viral-based attacks. But in large organizations with hundreds or thousands of machines configured for diverse users, keeping systems current with the patches they need is an ongoing challenge for IT staff. All too often, unpatched software vulnerabilities leave systems exposed, and company data at risk.

This article looks at how a configuration and lifecycle management solution for client devices can help organizations achieve client resilience by enabling IT administrators to gain control of the IT environment and help ensure client devices are secure, available, and compliant with established corporate standards.

An increasingly urgent situation

As IT professionals know, patch management doesn't occur in a vacuum, but is part of the larger challenge of keeping systems running safely, consistently, and optimally. That challenge has become even more urgent recently given the following developments:

Over the first half of 2005, Symantec documented more than 10,866 new Win32 viruses and worms, an increase of 48% over the 7,360 documented in the second half of 2004. It was also an increase of 142% over the 4,496 documented in the first half of 2004. This massive increase in variants is important because each variant represents a new, distinct threat against which administrators must protect their systems and for which antivirus vendors must create a new antivirus definition.

In this same period, Symantec documented 1,862 new vulnerabilities. This was the highest number recorded since the Internet Security Threat Report began tracking new vulnerabilities in six-month intervals. 49% of these vulnerabilities were classified as "high severity."

Phishing continues to grow. Over the first six months of 2005, Symantec blocked 1.04 billion phishing attacks, compared to 546 million in the last six months of 2004, a 90% increase. Between January 1 and June 30, 2005, the volume of phishing messages grew from an average of 2.99 million messages a day to 5.70 million.

Organizations are under increasing regulatory pressure. Regulatory compliance - and the obligations it places on top management - is fueling the need for a tightly managed approach to patching. Consider the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley is not a one-time event. Instead, companies need to achieve sustainability in their compliance programs. This includes demonstrating the effectiveness of IT controls on an ongoing basis, including patch management.

Given such an atmosphere, it's understandable how failure to deploy patches promptly or correctly can cripple an organization.

Ensuring a resilient client

Symantec believes that the only way organizations can ensure their client systems are secure, available, and compliant with corporate standards is by effectively gaining control over the IT environment. And here a configuration and lifecycle management solution for client devices is essential. Such a solution can reduce the complexity and cost of managing the lifecycle of client devices by automating manual tasks (such as deploying and configuring client firewall and anti-spyware software), rolling out new devices, managing software patches, and retiring client devices.

With a configuration and lifecycle management solution, administrators can:

Identify and deploy missing patches. The solution should provide IT administrators with the tools needed to proactively and automatically execute an organization's patch management process.