(Lack of) Patch Management Highlighted in US Congress

March 9, 2018 / G C Network / Comments Off on (Lack of) Patch Management Highlighted in US Congress

Packing My Bags For Prague and Dimension Data #Perspectives2015

By G C Network | May 15, 2015

Prague is a beautiful city!  My last time was in June 2010 when Jeremy Geelan invited me to speak at CloudExpo Europe (see my blog post and video from that…

SAP/HANA Does Big Data for National Security

By G C Network | May 13, 2015

Carmen Krueger, SAP NS2 SVP & GM While SAP is globally renowned as a provider of enterprise management software, the name is hardly ever associated with the spooky world of…

Be future ready: Selling to millennials and a marketplace of one

By G C Network | May 12, 2015

There is almost a deafening discussion going on about the self-centeredness of today’s young adults. Weather you call them Generation Y, millennials or twenty-somethings, the general refrain seems to be…

Surviving an Environment of IT Change

By G C Network | May 8, 2015

  “The Federal government today is in the midst of a revolution. The revolution is challenging the norms of government by introducing new ways of serving the people. New models…

OmniTI and GovCloud Join Forces to Provide Cloud-based Services

By G C Network | May 5, 2015

FULTON, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–OmniTI, a leading provider of web infrastructures and applications for companies that require scalable, high-performance, mission critical solutions, today announced that it has partnered with GovCloud Network, LLC…

Cloud microservices make their play

By G C Network | April 29, 2015

 by Kevin L. Jackson Cloud computing seems destined to be the way enterprises will use information technology. The drastic cost reductions and impressive operational improvements make the transition an unstoppable trend.…

Tweeps Are People Too!!

By G C Network | April 25, 2015

I woke up this morning to the devastating news about the earthquake in Nepal. Sitting here in California  that destruction is literally on the other side of the world but…

The CISO role in cybersecurity: Solo or team sport?

By G C Network | April 14, 2015

The average length of time in the commercial sector between a network security breach and when the detection of that breach is more than 240 days, according to Gregory Touhill, deputy…

Setting standards for IoT can capitalize on future growth

By G C Network | March 30, 2015

by Melvin Greer Managing Director Greer Institute for Leadership and Innovation The adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) appears to be unquestioned. Advances in wearables and sensors are strategic to…

Women in tech: Meet the trailblazers of STEM equality

By G C Network | March 19, 2015

By Sandra K. Johnson CEO, SKJ Visioneering, LLC   Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals are drivers of innovation,creativity and invention. STEM disciplines are significant drivers of economies worldwide,…

According to the former Equifax CEO’s testimony to Congress, one of the primary causes of this now infamous data breach was the company’s failure to patch a critical vulnerability in the open source Apache Struts Web application framework. Equifax also waited a week to scan its network for apps that remained vulnerable.[1]Would you like to appear at the next Congressional hearing on patch management?

Patch management is the process of identifying, acquiring, installing, and verifying patches for products and systems. Patches not only correct security and functionality problems in software and firmware, but they also introduce new, and sometimes mandatory, capabilities into the organization’s IT environment.  It is so useful, the CERT® Coordination Center (CERT®/CC) claims that 95 percent of all network intrusions are avoidable by using proper patch management to keep systems up-to-date.
This nightmare true story and compelling endorsement from CERT®/CC, however, masks the ugly operational patch management implementation complexities. Key enterprise challenges include:
  • Timing, prioritization, and testing of patches often present conflicting requirements. Competitive prioritization of IT resources, business imperative, andbudget limitations often leave patching tasks on the back burner
  • Technical mechanisms and requirements for applying patches may also conflict and may include:
    • Software that updates itself with little or no enterprise input
    • Use of a centralized management tool
    • Third-party patch management applications
    • Negative or unknown interactions with network access control, health check functions, and other similar technologies
    • User initiated manual software updates
    • User-initiatedpatches or version upgrades
  • Typical enterprise heterogeneous environment that includes
    • Unmanaged or user managed hosts
    • Non-standard IT components that require vendor patching or cannot be patched
    • Enterprise owned assets that typically operate on non-enterprise networks
    • Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices
    • Patching of rehydrating virtual machines
    • Firmware updates

 

Piling up on these purely operational tasks are the change management steps associated with:
  • Maintaining current knowledge of available patches;
  • Deciding what patches are appropriate for particular systems;
  • Ensuring proper installation of patches;
  • Testing systems after installation; and
  •  Documenting all procedures and any specific configurations.

 

This challenge can also be significantly exacerbated in an IT environment that blends legacy, outsourced and cloud service provider resources. Environment heterogeneity and the sheer volume of patches released is why any patching strategy that primarily relies solely on manual implementation is untenable.

According to the SANS Institute, meeting the patch management challenge requires the creation of a patch management methodology and the automation of that methodology.[2]The methodology itself should include:
  • A detailed inventory of all hardware, operating systems, and applications that exist in the network and the creation of the process to keep the inventory up-to-date.
  • A process to identify vulnerabilities in hardware, operating systems, andapplications.
  • Risk assessment and buy-in from management and business owners.
  • A detailed procedure for testing patches before deployment.
  • A detailed process for deploying patches and service packs, as well as a process for verification of deployment.

 

As for the automation component, it should deliver an automated, comprehensive server lifecycle approach that can provision and configure software, update patches and implement configurations that can improve security and compliance across physical, virtual and cloud servers.
It should also encompass a policy-based approach with support for all major operating systems on physical servers and leading virtualization and cloud platforms. An ability to automate continuous compliance checks and remediate any security or regulatory shortcoming is also paramount. If appropriately implemented, IT Staff should be able to manage patching via a web interface. Having this feature increases server to admin ratio, enhances operational productivity, accelerates audit timelines and reduces incident response latency.
A leading solution in this space is BladeLogicServer Automation by BMC. It was specifically designed to address the dual enterprise requirements of (1) ensuring compliance with rules and regulations and (2) software patching to reduce security vulnerabilities.  In the market for over 10 years, it is a comprehensive server lifecycle automation solution that helps organizations provision and configure software, update patches and configurations to improve security and compliance across physical, virtual and cloud servers. Advanced capabilities include script automation, compliance tracking and the ability to stage and test patches before committing them. The latter feature is used to copy patch bundles to the targeted servers before maintenance windows open.The full-function suite integrates with change management systems to facilitate change record creation. Vulnerability management and remediation are automated by importing vulnerability management scan data from vendors like Qualys, Tenable and Rapid 7, and mapping the vulnerabilities back to underlying patches in BladeLogic.
Secure IT operations start with the identification and prioritization of critical vulnerabilities paired with the capability to deliver multi-tier remediation.  These reinforcing goals are why an advance patch automation solution is a “must have” for today’s modern enterprise.

This post is brought to you by BMC and IDG. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of BMC.
Cloud Musings

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS – © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2016-2018)

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
Posted in

G C Network

Cloud Computing

Cybersecurity