(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

Thank You GetVoIP!!

By G C Network | April 25, 2014

Thank you for the honor of being named a “Top 100 Cloud Professionals to Follow on G+”! Congratulations also to my 99 colleagues.  Read more at: ↑ Grab this Headline…

Facilitators Announced For NGA Agile Cloud Brainstorming Event

By G C Network | April 14, 2014

The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (ITAAC) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) are announcing a slate of innovative leaders to serve as facilitators for the upcoming  “Agile Sourcing Environment…

MBO Partners Spotlights GovCloud Founder Kevin L. Jackson

By G C Network | April 6, 2014

Associate Spotlight Interview with Kevin L. JacksonMBO Associate Since 10/2013 1)    Tell us a little bit about what you do.I am the CEO and founder of GovCloud Network, LLC. In…

ITAAC/ICH and TIA To Host Commercial Cloud Sourcing Brainstorming Session for NGA

By G C Network | April 1, 2014

The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (ITAAC) and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) are honored to team with NGA in hosting the first “Agile Sourcing Environment for Commercial Cloud” brainstorming session,…

Author and Tech Strategist Melvin Greer Profiled by WashingtonExec

By G C Network | March 17, 2014

Congratulations to my NCOIC colleague and dear friend Melvin Greer on his impressive WashingtonExec interview. A senior fellow and chief strategist at Lockheed Martin, Mel has more than 29 years’…

IT Risk Management Summit – March 26, 2013 – Reston, VA

By G C Network | March 12, 2014

In response to growing demand for formal software risk and quality management tools, the nations’ most respected standards bodies and IT communities of practice have joined forces to advance the…

PerspecSys Survey Reveals Cloud-based Security Concerns for 2014

By G C Network | March 10, 2014

Today PerspecSys announced the results of a survey conducted at the 2014 RSA Conference concerning the attitudes and policies of organizations towards cloud-based security. After polling 130 security professionals on…

NCOIC Debuts Roadmap for Designing, Managing Cyber-secure Hybrid Computing Environment

By G C Network | March 5, 2014

Open process by the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium uses cloud infrastructure to cut computing costs in half and enable collaboration by different systems and users WASHINGTON—March 5, 2014—The Network…

Why State & Local Governments Should be Prepared for Cloud

By G C Network | February 17, 2014

You are invited to attend the Cloud Webinar Series: Why State & Local Governments Should be Prepared for Cloud. This educational webinar is brought to you by RISC Networks, and…

IBM Hybrid Cloud Debate: Experts debate: Are Hybrid Clouds the End All Be All?

By G C Network | February 12, 2014

A hybrid cloud may become the solution as the debate between public vs private cloud becomes so 2013. The industry’s experts will debate on when the hybrid clouds are and…

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