Picture this: You’re the head of IT at a medium-sized company, tasked with overhauling the cybersecurity approach.
First thing’s first: Installing patches. Should be fairly simple, right?

Then, you run a scan and realize the situation is a little more complex. There are hundreds of patches and updates on the list.

Some of these are feature updates for apps nobody uses anymore – barely even worth bothering with. Others are critical security patches that will protect sensitive IT assets and data. The best time to install these was yesterday and the second best time is right now.

The hard part is working out which are which.

Here’s the issue: there are hundreds of patches and you don’t know how to prioritize them without going through one-by-one. Worse still, some will cause downtime when installed and others might have unforeseen consequences on other systems, apps, and workflows.

So where on earth do you start?

Here’s everything you need to know about patch management.

Patch management is the process that IT departments use to identify, prioritize, and install software updates.

The goal is to identify and eliminate known software vulnerabilities before hackers can use them to access your network and systems.

A software vulnerability is essentially an error or bug in the underlying code of an application that wasn’t identified before release.

This is common and most applications will have them at some point.

Some vulnerabilities allow hackers to access your IT environment and elevate privileges once they’ve done so. This essentially creates an open door into your IT environment for anybody who knows how to exploit it.

When a manufacturer identifies a vulnerability, they will fix the issue and generally release the updated code via a patch or update.

Installing these is the best way to ensure hackers can’t use vulnerabilities to infiltrate your IT environment.

💡 Deep dive: What Is Patch Management? Definition, Process, Benefits, and Best Practices [UPDATED 2024]

The key goal of patch management is to eliminate key attack vectors that hackers can use to target and infiltrate your IT systems.

But this is not the only reason that patches/updates are released. In fact, there are several types of patch management you need to be aware of:

• Security patches: These are created to fix known software vulnerabilities, generally by replacing the compromised code.
• Bug fixes: These are released to eliminate issues with the software’s features, performance, stability, or usability.
• Feature updates: These occur when the software vendor adds new features or functionality to the application.

All three patch types are important for different reasons. However, only the first is relevant to security, and is therefore the focus of this article.

💡 Deep dive: Main Types of Patch Management: A Decision-Making Guide

Patch management is important because it helps improve your overall security posture.

The more software vulnerabilities you have, the greater the risk of being infiltrated by a hacker.

But it’s more complex than just that. Installing patches requires IT resource and often creates periods of downtime.

Most organizations won’t have the time to install every single patch or update.

In this context, patch management is as much about identifying and prioritizing the most important patches to install – as it is about actually implementing them.

💡 Deep dive: Importance, Challenges, and Use Cases for Patch Management [TBC]

It’s easy to think that effective patch management simply involves installing all updates as soon as they’re made available. In truth, the situation is more complicated.

To be successful, there are several best practices it’s important to bear in mind. Here are three of the most important:

• Prioritize vulnerabilities: Few organizations have the time or resources to install every patch. Instead, it’s important to understand and prioritize those which pose the most critical threats to your IT environment.
• Test patches before deployment: When installed, updates can have unforeseen side effects on existing tools, workflows, and processes. It is therefore important to test patches (ideally in a controlled or sandboxed environment) before they’re fully deployed, so potential issues can be identified and mitigated.
• Automate patches: Automated patches are generally quicker and more effective than relying on your IT team to manually identify and install each update. However, you should try to ensure patches that could cause downtime aren’t installed automatically.
• Get the right software: Not all patch management tools are built the same. It’s important to choose a tool that’s easy to use, cost effective, and integrates with your other cybersecurity products. At Heimdal, our goal is to create a one-stop-shop for cybersecurity through an easy-to-use and cost-effective solution.

💡 Deep dive: Six Patch Management Best Practices [Updated 2024]

For IT teams, patch management can be a complex business. Getting it right involves a whole range of tasks, processes, and technical requirements.

Here are three main ways in which the right tools can help with this:

• Identifying and prioritizing patches: Patch management tools can both identify unpatched vulnerabilities in your environment and help prioritize those that pose the most critical risk.
• Installing patches: Tools can also directly install the patches themselves, avoiding your IT team needing to do each one manually. The IT team can then select patches to be installed on a case-by-case basis or create automated rules to do this for them.
• Compliance reporting: Patch management tools can generally create automated reports to quantify which patches have been installed, when, and what systems are affected. This is a crucial part of IT and risk management compliance.

💡 Deep dive: Full gated demo

Patch management software is one of the best ways to identify, prioritize, and install patches.

But to get it right, you need to find the right product for your organization.

Here are a few points to bear in mind:

• Get the right features: The right vulnerability management tools should offer features to scan vulnerabilities in your environment, prioritize them with CSS scores, install patches, create automated policies, and create compliant reports.
• Assess cost and complexity: Different platforms are built for different organizations. The most expensive on the market also tend to be the most complex, since they’re designed to be managed by specialist security teams at large companies. Other tools are aimed more towards SMEs and are generally easier for small and less specialist teams to use. It’s important to get the right balance of features, costs, and complexity for your organization.
• Assess integrations: While vulnerability products are important, they’re not the only cybersecurity tool in your arsenal. You may also need PAM software, DNS security, email protection tools, endpoint detection and response, and much more. Ideally, all these tools should be available under a single license to reduce costs, complexity, and integrations.

Otherwise, you need a tool that effectively integrates with a range of third-party cybersecurity tools.

💡 Deep dive: How to Implement and Automate Patch Management Software

Patch management requires a robust process to document and report on all patches installed.

By far the best way to do this is to get the right software.

These are built with the most recent compliance requirements in mind, and offer plenty of options to automatically generate compliant reports.

💡 Deep dive: Patch Management Template [Free & Downloadable] – 2024]

Patch management software is an umbrella term for any type of cybersecurity tool that helps to identify, install, and prioritize patches to install.

They also generally feature tools to automate patch installation and generate compliance reports.

These tools exist because patch management is near-impossible to do manually.

There are simply too many vulnerabilities in the average IT environment for you to effectively identify and prioritize them, without the right tools.

The right patch management software, therefore, is invaluable.

💡 Deep dive: Patch Management Template [Free & Downloadable] – 2024

When looking for the right patch management software, there are a few features it’s important to look out for.

Here are three of the most important:

• Vulnerability scanner: This enables organizations to run a scan on their IT environment and identify any unpatched vulnerabilities.
• CVV score ranking: These tools can also associate unpatched vulnerabilities with publicly available CVV scores. These help quantify the relative risk of different vulnerabilities – though it can’t take into account the specific context of your IT environment.
• Automated policies: Advanced vulnerability management products allow you to customize policies to automatically install patches, controlling the type of patches that are installed and when.

💡 Deep dive: Best Patch Management Software & Tools 2024

💡 Deep dive: 8+ Free and Open Source Patch Management Tools for Your Company [Updated 2024]

Patch management software helps IT teams identify vulnerabilities to install, quantify risk, install patches, and generate compliance reports on their activities.

Nonetheless, even with these tools, some IT teams may find they don’t have the skills or resources in their teams to effectively manage this whole process.

In this case, you may decide to go for a ‘managed patch management’ option.

Most cybersecurity providers will offer managed services alongside product licenses.

Alternatively, you could engage a managed security services provider (MSSP), who generally offer vulnerability management among their services.

These options give organizations the peace of mind that vulnerabilities are being effectively managed and installed by trained cybersecurity professionals.

They are therefore particularly popular among small and medium-sized companies with limited internal IT resource.

💡 Deep dive: What Is Patch Management as a Service (PMaaS) & What Can It Do For You?