Patch management is essential for security, IT compliance, and efficiency. When your operating systems and applications are fully patched, they’ll be able to operate at maximum efficiency and keep vulnerabilities closed before cyber attackers can exploit them. Yet many businesses neglect patch management best practices, leaving their endpoints outdated.
If you want to ensure your endpoints and apps are updated and secure, it’s time to explore the patch management best practices you need to know. We’ll examine the steps you can follow to make patch management efficient, how to overcome common obstacles, and how Splashtop AEM keeps all your endpoints patched and protected.
Patch Management Process: An Overview
First and foremost, we need to understand the patch management process. Patch management helps ensure that software and operating systems stay up to date, secure, and functional by downloading and installing update patches when they become available.
This takes a few steps:
Create an inventory of software applications and systems
Identify available patches for your endpoints
Establish priorities based on risk and how critical the systems are
Assess and test patches
Deploy patches system-wide
Monitor and verify the patch status
Following these steps enables IT teams to keep up with the latest updates and close the most critical vulnerabilities as quickly as possible, maintaining IT compliance and mitigating technical issues.
Key Obstacles in Patch Management and Their Impact
While patch management is vital, it has to be approached properly. Several obstacles can slow down or obstruct the patch management process, so understanding what they are and how to overcome them can help IT teams manage patches and updates more efficiently.
Common obstacles include:
Delayed deployment: Prompt patching is important for protecting endpoints, but all too often, important updates get delayed. After all, patching can take time out of the day, but clicking the “remind me later” button only takes a second. However, constantly delaying patches can leave devices vulnerable for far longer than they should be.
Insufficient resources: Manual patching can take time and resources, both of which are often in high demand and low supply. If an IT team can’t dedicate agents and resources to updating each of their endpoints, they’ll slow down the updates and miss devices, putting them at risk.
Difficulty managing large environments: In large, distributed work environments, especially those with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, it can be hard to ensure each endpoint is properly patched. If the devices rely on manual patching, it can be next to impossible for IT agents to access every device, which risks leaving some unprotected.
Compatibility problems: Sometimes, a new patch has unexpected compatibility issues with legacy systems or integrations. As such, it’s helpful to test patches in a closed environment before rolling them out across a company to identify any potential compatibility problems that may arise and find a solution.
10 Best Practices for Efficient and Secure Patch Management
With that said, following best practices for patch management can help overcome these obstacles and ensure a full, efficient, and secure patch deployment. Following these guidelines will make patch management easy on your IT team and keep each of your endpoints protected:
1. Maintain a Comprehensive IT Asset Inventory
One important way to ensure all your endpoints and applications remain updated is to maintain a comprehensive inventory of them. A good endpoint management solution (like Splashtop AEM) includes automatic inventory tracking, so you can know exactly which devices need to be updated, what applications they use, and what patches they require.
2. Define a Structured Patch Management Policy
A patch management policy goes beyond simply saying “Update your devices immediately.” It requires a testing strategy, rules for prioritizing patches, update scheduling guidelines, and more. A good patch management policy helps ensure you don’t miss a patch and the updates don’t interrupt daily work, keeping devices protected without compromising efficiency.
3. Implement a Regular Patch Deployment Schedule
Many companies release patches on a set schedule, like Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday releases. Setting a patch deployment schedule helps companies keep up with these regular releases and lets them schedule patches around employees’ schedules to ensure the patches are installed at a convenient time that won’t interrupt work.
4. Automate Patch Deployment
Manual patch deployment is time-consuming and prone to human error, as it’s easy to overlook devices or not know when a patch isn’t properly installed. Using an automation tool, like Splashtop AEM’s automated OS and third-party application patching, saves time, reduces manual labor, and eliminates human error by automatically detecting, downloading, and rolling out patches across distributed environments.
5. Test Patches Before Full Deployment
While it is uncommon, there’s always the chance that a patch will interact poorly with a device or other applications, especially if there are compatibility issues. Testing helps identify these cases so they can be addressed or avoided before rolling out a patch across a wider environment.
6. Prioritize Patches Based on Risk Assessment
While every vulnerability should be addressed as quickly as possible, some still present higher risks than others. It’s helpful to prioritize patches so that those addressing the most dangerous vulnerabilities and business-critical systems are installed first, while less vital patches can wait until afterwards.
7. Ensure Timely Patch Deployment
Hackers and cyberattackers won’t patiently wait if you have to delay your patch deployment. The longer you take to install patches, the more you’re leaving your endpoints at risk. When scheduling patch deployment, make sure that you don't take too long, and the patches are installed in a swift and timely manner.
8. Monitor and Audit the Patch Management Process
There’s always a chance that an error will occur during patch deployment and the patch won’t be properly installed. When that happens, it’s important to be aware so the issue can be addressed and the patch can be properly installed. Using a patch management tool that provides visibility into patch installation and management helps ensure every patch is properly installed, and auditing the entire patch management process also helps identify areas for improvement or issues that can be addressed.
9. Develop a Rollback and Recovery Plan
Should something go wrong, you need to be ready with a rollback and recovery plan. This will help you roll patches back to a previous version in case the new patch causes issues, and have a plan in place for recovering any lost data, so any unexpected errors will cause minimal damage.
10. Conduct Post-Patch Analysis
When the patching is done, there are still lessons you can learn from the experience. Post-patch analytics help identify areas for improvement by analyzing patch success rate, time to remediation, system stability, and more, so you can improve your patch management plans and maintain compliance for audits and similar reviews.
Key Considerations for Selecting the Best Patch Management Software
It’s clear that patch management software is key to a successful, fast, and efficient patch rollout, but not all patch management solutions are the same. It’s important to research the different software options and find one that best suits your needs.
Consider factors such as:
Automation: Automation tools are necessary for full, complete, and convenient patch deployment. Look for a solution that can automatically detect and deploy patch updates to keep your endpoints up to date without interrupting work.
Ease of use: Complex software with steep learning curves can cause more problems than they solve. Look for a user-friendly solution that can display and manage everything you need from a single interface.
Scalability: When you add more users and endpoints, you need a solution that can keep up with your growth. Look for a scalable
Compatibility: When you have multiple devices with different operating systems, finding patch management software that works with each of them is essential. If you use a tool that’s incompatible with any of your devices, you’ll risk leaving them unpatched and vulnerable to attack.
Make sure you find software that supports all the operating systems and applications you use, with centralized control for managing multiple endpoints. Robust reporting and compliance tracking features are also essential to ensure your patches are fully and properly deployed across each endpoint.
How Does Splashtop’s Automated Patch Management Address Security Vulnerabilities?
When you’re looking at patch management tools, Splashtop AEM (Autonomous Endpoint Management) has all the features you need. Splashtop AEM includes real-time patch management with insights based on CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exploits) data and automated controls, so you can streamline patch management and ensure both security and efficiency.
Splashtop’s comprehensive approach to patch management automates patch detection, scheduling, and rollouts. You can create customized, policy-based patching policies, including version approvals and update rings to ensure patches are tested and rolled out according to your needs, and automatically update Windows, macOS, and third-party software as soon as patches are available.
All of this is managed from a single, user-friendly interface, making it easier than ever to protect your network and keep your endpoints up to date.
Experience Splashtop’s Automated Patching for Stronger Security: Start with a Free Trial!
Splashtop AEM makes it easy to update all your endpoints per patch management best practices. Its automated patch workflows keep devices and applications up to date without interrupting employees or taking time away from the IT team’s day, providing cybersecurity and maintaining IT compliance without disrupting work.
Splashtop AEM gives IT teams the tools and technology they need to monitor endpoints, proactively address issues, and reduce their workloads. This includes:
Automated patching for OS, third-party, and custom apps.
AI-powered CVE-based vulnerability insights.
Customizable policy frameworks.
Hardware and software inventory management across all endpoints.
Alerts and remediation to automatically resolve issues before they become problems.
Background actions to access tools like task managers and device managers without interrupting users.
Want to experience Splashtop AEM for yourself? Get started with a free trial today:
