In the dynamic realm of cybersecurity, closing the knowledge gap becomes crucial for staying one step ahead of potential threats and developing strong cyber practices. This series explores the ACSC Essential Eight component: patch applications. This article delves into the intricacies of this frequently underestimated strategy, which plays a pivotal role in the defence against cyber threats.
Unravelling Patch Applications:
While discussions about application patching may occasionally go unnoticed, its significance cannot be overstated. Given that 34% of infection vectors are linked to vulnerability exploitation, understanding the crucial role of implementing application patches becomes a cornerstone in cybersecurity defence.
The Challenge: Bridging the Gap:
Making internal teams and clients understand the importance of “patch applications” presents a challenge. As we delve into this strategy, it’s clear that awareness and education play crucial roles in ensuring it’s implemented effectively.
Patching Applications Explored:
Patching applications involves more than creating a software asset register. Utilising a vulnerability scanner becomes critical, ensuring applications are up-to-date and all potential vulnerabilities are addressed. This process is intricately linked with application control, providing clarity on which applications require patching.
Customer Challenge: Identifying Installed Applications:
Identifying and keeping track of installed applications in end-user computing pose a major challenge in the patching process. This is often because many organisations don’t have an asset register and their users have the freedom to independently install applications.
Organisational Impact and Solutions:
Patching applications can be expensive, involving upfront and ongoing costs like time, effort, staffing, and software resources. It’s essential for decision-makers to be educated on standardising applications and set up processes for automatic identification and maintenance tools.
Empowering Cyber Infrastructure Protection:
In hardening endpoints and reducing attack surfaces, a robust application patching mechanism proves essential. This strategy, integrated into the ACSC Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents framework, holds an “essential” effectiveness rating. Understanding the benefits empowers organisations to address customer concerns and unique challenges, bridging the gap between technical procedures and business processes. Education and improvement in cybersecurity practices contribute to collective protection against evolving threats. Stay tuned as we continue to unravel the Essential Eight, enhancing cybersecurity resilience one strategy at a time.