For MSPs, effective patch management is one of the best ways to keep clients secure, avoid easily preventable security incidents, and protect their reputation. After all, we live in a world where the CISA’s list of routinely exploited vulnerabilities is full of security issues with publicly available patches.
The challenge is managing patches efficiently while spinning all the other plates required to run a profitable MSP business. Like many other aspects of IT service management, automation is essential for efficient patch management.
This post covers automated patch management in detail, including best practices, benefits, common challenges, and how automated patch management software can streamline patch management for MSPs.
What does patch management mean?
Patch management is the process of identifying, prioritizing, testing, and deploying patches to systems.
Patches are software or firmware updates that address security issues and bugs in existing products. For example, the updates Microsoft released for Exchange Servers that address ProxyShell are patches.
Patch management is one subset of vulnerability management. In some cases, patches also add new functionality to a system.
While manual patch management is possible, automation is a key component of patch management best practices. Tools that can automate the discovery and deployment of patches make patch management more efficient and less error-prone.
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) indicates that automation is a requirement for reaching level 2 and level 3 patching and vulnerability management maturity. So automated patch management isn’t just about improving efficiency — it’s also an important part of growing your MSP.
What are some common challenges in patch management?
Patch management can quickly become complex with all the different vendors, systems, and platforms deployed throughout modern organizations. Here are five common patch management challenges you should know:
- Detection of available patches: To deploy a patch, you have to know it’s available. That means manually or automatically checking for patches. It also means your asset management practices, such as maintaining an up-to-date asset inventory, will directly impact your patch management capabilities.
- Prioritization: Patches can be disruptive and come with risks of their own (e.g., a failed deployment). Some patches can wait for a regular maintenance window, while others are urgent enough to require deployment as soon as possible. Knowing the difference requires context, such as the severity of the underlying vulnerability, the criticality of the affected systems, and what compensating security controls an organization has in place.
- Deployment: Updating a single server is easy enough. But what about a fleet of servers? Or network devices from a mix of vendors? Scaling patch deployments can quickly become complex without the right tools. Automated patch management software can simplify this process by automatically downloading the latest patches from vendors and rapidly deploying them across multiple systems.
- Failures and new issues: Patches aren’t foolproof and can create their own problems. Therefore, teams should have a standard patch management process that includes testing requirements before production rollout (at least for critical systems) and the procedure for rolling back changes if things don’t go according to plan.
- Visibility: Making informed decisions about patch management requires quality data. Often, no single view or report provides an overview of patch status throughout an environment, which can lead to errors.
What are the best practices for patch management?
Automated patch management needs a foundation of solid policies, along with a way to detect new patches, evaluate their urgency, and test patches before full deployment.
Create policies
Standardization ensures uniform patch management throughout an environment. Patch management policies should — at a minimum — define automation rules, internal roles, and when manual patching is appropriate.
Key items to consider when creating a patch management policy include:
- How frequently to check for patch availability and run vulnerability scans
- Categorization of patch priorities
- How frequently patches are deployed
- Approval processes for patch deployment
- Systems that require an exclusion and how exclusions are obtained
Assess risk level
It’s important to consider the risk mitigation of patches, based on factors like the number of affected devices, the function of specific software, and the severity of the vulnerability. For example, there’s a big difference between a critical patch for a research lab network and a simple bug fix for an office photocopier.
Once you determine your rules for prioritizing patches by risk level, you can configure your automated patch management software to handle software patches without a technician. That means you can schedule patch deployment based on your client’s business hours and maximize uptime for their essential systems.
Pro-tip: Don’t forget about the risk of drift! “Drift” occurs when a system’s configuration or version unexpectedly changes from a desired baseline. For example, a technician might change a system that reintroduces a previously patched vulnerability. Make sure your policies and detection mechanisms account for this risk.
Monitor patch releases
Knowing when patches are available is essential for timely deployment. Automated patch management tools can search for new patches and detect them at any time — even when your technicians are offline. Even so, MSPs should keep up with updates when possible. Having context about updates and being able to discuss them with clients is an important part of the job.
Four resources to check in with are:
- CISA’s National Cyber Awareness System
- Microsoft Security Update Guide
- Apple security releases
- Cisco Security Advisories
Test patches
Sometimes, patches create more problems than they solve, so teams should test patches in a controlled environment before production deployment. However, real-world constraints often make pre-production testing impractical. For example, organizations might not have test systems comparable to client environments.
When multiple systems are in production, deploying a patch in stages can reduce risk. Additionally, post-patch testing to validate affected functionality can confirm the patch didn’t break anything, and continuous monitoring can catch any problems the initial round of testing missed.
As a contingency, you should always have a rollback plan if a patch goes wrong. Configuration management tools and reliable backup solutions can reduce the impact of a patch-related failure.
Why should MSPs use automated patch management solutions?
Automated patch management supercharges an MSP’s ability to manage security and functionality across every client endpoint. Automated patching saves time, reduces the risk of manual errors, and ensures patches are prioritized correctly.
Automated patch management solutions can help MSPs by downloading patches automatically from vendors and gathering detailed information about system updates and vulnerabilities. Simply put, it’s one of the primary areas MSPs can and should leverage automation to help scale their business.
Let’s explore three specific reasons why MSPs should automate patch management.
Enhance security
Manual patch management doesn’t scale. With automated patch management tools, you can enforce patch policies at scale, improve detection of vulnerabilities, and ensure patches are promptly deployed. It’s the best strategy for protecting client operating systems, endpoints, and devices.
Improve productivity
Manual patching is time-intensive. Even with remote access, logging into individual systems, checking for updates, understanding if applying them is reasonable, and deploying the patch takes time. With automated patch management, technicians can spend more time on work that requires human judgment, as well as iterating on processes that help the team grow.
Streamline reporting
An automated patch management solution tracks all data around patch application and outcomes. Because so much of MSP work is invisible to clients, having this kind of information is critical for demonstrating the value MSPs provide.
How to implement automated patch management
There are plenty of options available for automated patch management. Integrating your automated patch management tool with other MSP tools, such as remote access and ticketing management, can be a great way to streamline operations and limit tool sprawl.
With Syncro, MSPs can:
- Maintain a detailed asset inventory. Syncro has robust asset management capabilities that automatically sync asset data. This allows MSPs to easily find any asset, review its status, and see its patch management history.
- Detect patch status. MSPs can use Syncro to identify missing Windows patches and install them remotely. You can even view failed, rejected, and recently installed patches.
- Define custom rules for automated patch management. With Syncro, you can define Windows and third-party patch management policies that automatically enforce your preferences. And with Syncro’s powerful scripting engine and script library, creating custom workflows is a simple task for technicians.
A better way to manage automated patch management
Ready to add automated patch management to your MSP tech stack? Sign up for free, or contact us and we’ll walk you through how Syncro automated patch management works.
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