As we race into the latest technological era, it has become crucial – now more than ever – to take cybersecurity seriously. October 2024 marks the 21st Cyber Security Awareness Month as declared by the President of the United States and Congress since 2004. The internal campaign is led by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) and has grown into a collaborative effort to encourage effective cyber hygiene and raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity amongst businesses and the public.
This year, the theme for Cybersecurity Awareness Month is “Secure Our World” – a campaign aimed at reminding the public that there are simple, daily practices that can be used to protect yourself, your family, and your business from online threats. One of the four main focuses of the campaign this year includes updating software - along with using stronger passwords, turning on Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and recognizing and reporting phishing scams. Software updates are crucial to maintaining the most updated and secure version of the software you use daily – especially in today’s current digital landscape.
In this blog article, we’re going to focus on the 2024 CSAM call to highlight software updates and patch management by looking at the role they play in ensuring your cybersecurity. First, let’s get a better understanding of what a software update is.
What Is a Software Update?
Every software program goes through a series of updates to upgrade itself throughout its lifetime. A software update can be defined as any enhancement issued by software developers to improve or fix elements of a software program. These updates can be automatic or require manual input by the user – however, they all essentially work to continuously elevate the software program in some way. This can include security updates, fixing bugs, adding features, or optimizing performance. Let’s take a closer look at some of the different types of software updates available:
- Security Software Updates: Naturally, the most common - and most critical – software updates revolve around security. These updates are essential to fortify the security software protecting your infrastructure from all types of cyber threats and often patch vulnerabilities and enhance existing security protocols.
- Bug Fixing Updates: Bugfixes aim to resolve specific issues – or “bugs” – in a software program that were only identified after testing or by users. These could vary from minor details in the system to massive gaps in code.
- Feature Software Updates: Feature updates are done when a new function or feature is being added to the software by developers. This includes new designs, capabilities, and layouts and is often optional for most users.
- Performance Software Updates: Performance updates are used to improve the speed and efficiency of the software program. These updates will typically optimize resource management, code, and memory usage to ensure that the software runs faster and smoother.
While software updates are a great way to provide a comprehensive software upgrade, we’re now going to explore the concept of patch management as well and how it ties to the 2024 CSAM focus of updating software for improved cybersecurity resilience.
What are Patches?
A patch for software focuses on fixing specific issues that impact the software’s operational efficiency and the overall user experience. CISA generally defines patches as “software and operating system (OS) updates that address security vulnerabilities within a program or product.” Vendors will release these smaller and more targeted patch updates to address specific concerns without needing to update the entire software program.
However, implementing patch updates can disrupt workflow and cause downtime for companies – this is where effective patch management processes are used to balance the business’ operational needs with cybersecurity patching tasks. While many people might use the terms patches and software updates interchangeably, they both have distinct features and uses.
The Difference Between a Software Update and a Patch
Software updates serve a much more encompassing role and involve a more comprehensive improvement of the entire software program. A patch, on the other hand, is a more targeted approach to fixing a specific issue or vulnerability. Patches therefore can be easier and quicker to install whereas a software update requires more time. Another difference between the two is that patches are released more frequently than software updates. There are many reasons why patches might be necessary, these include:
- Security Vulnerabilities: Software vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers to gain unauthorized access to data, systems, and more. A report showed that in 38% of intrusions in 2023, attackers exploited vulnerabilities to gain initial access. Patching can prevent these security vulnerabilities from being leveraged by fixing the gaps before hackers can take advantage of them.
- Fixing Bugs: Another key use for patches is to resolve bugs in the software - allowing it to operate effectively as intended.
- Enhancing Performance: Many patches are focused on allowing the software to operate more efficiently by improving functions and features.
- Ensuring Compliance: Patches can also help companies conform to regulatory compliance and policies that protect user data.
- Compatibility: Some patches might also be used to address compatibility issues with specific hardware, software configurations, or operating systems.
Generally, patch management and software updates are both used to elevate and protect the system from any faults or gaps. To elaborate further on that point, we can now look at some of the main benefits of regular software updates and patch management.
Benefits of Regular Software Updates and Patch Management
Organizations and individuals want their software programs to be running at their best at all times. This means that users need to regularly update their software to receive the latest upgrades and invest in proper patch management. Some of the more detailed benefits of this include:
- Enhanced Security: Naturally, by updating your software and staying up to date with the most recent patches, you ensure that your company and personal PC are protected with the latest security updates. Regular software updates also ensure reputational protection by preventing your company from experiencing cyber-attacks.
- Optimized Performance: Software updates are built to help your software run smoother and better. Regular patches will also fix any issues you might have and ultimately elevate your entire infrastructure.
- Providing Regulatory Compliance: Several countries and agencies enforce strict compliance regulations. With regular patch management, you can ensure that your company never risks a grey area in terms of user data safety that leads to a hefty fine or legal action.
- Providing New Features: Software updates have the added benefit of giving you access to a range of new features and functions that you might miss out on. These features are often based on user feedback and testing and will improve the way you use and experience your software program.
- Ensuring Stability: For most companies, updating and patch management can become a tedious issue that causes downtime. However, with regular software updates and optimized patch management, you can avoid that risk entirely and ensure that your systems are online and running smoothly without any disruptions.
Regularly updating software and ensuring efficient patch management has a variety of benefits for both public users and organizations. While seeing the positive effects of regular updates can be helpful, it’s also important to know the risks of failing to update software and manage patches.
Risks of Neglecting Software Updates
According to the National Cybersecurity Alliance 2023 report, only 36% of people always install software updates when they become available. While software updates and patching might seem like a trivial matter for most companies when looking at expensive ransomware and cyber-attack headlines, it’s important to note that these terrifying cybersecurity cautionary tales can be caused by neglecting seemingly harmless software updates. These are some of the risks that you take when you choose to ignore the “update software” notification in the corner of your screen:
- Data Breaches: Research has shown that hackers will attack every 39 seconds on average. Without regular software updates and patching, hackers can easily slip through weak spots and exploit vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access – risking user data, system integrity, and other privileged information.
- Operational Failure: Without regular software updates and patching, your company and personal PC are running on ineffective and outdated software – leading to operational inefficiencies, security vulnerabilities, and swindling performance issues. This will set your company back in terms of compatibility and service - allowing competitors who take updates more seriously to take your place.
- Downtime: Stalling software updates can weaken operational efficiency and taking the time to install updates after long periods will drastically slow down the system.
- Financial Loss: According to IBM, the global average cost of a data breach in 2024 amounts to US$ 4.88 million. This typically includes the ransom fees, legal fees, and reputational damage control.
- Reputational Loss: Generally, a company that risks its data safety by neglecting simple software updates or refusing to provide patch management will suffer much greater scrutiny by the public, media, and shareholders.
- Compliance Issues: Failure to update software and implement patches can result in hefty fines and legal action by agencies and policies that protect user data.
These are all very serious and real risks that companies take when they choose to avoid software updates and effective patch management strategies. To help you maintain better software update practices, we’ve also created a list of best practices to help you or your company avoid these risks and operate more efficiently with the latest patches and updates.
Best Practices for Managing Updates and Patching
When it comes to managing your software updates and patch management system, it’s important to understand the scope and reach of software updates for your infrastructure. We’ve created a list of best practices combined with CISA’s Secure Our World software update tips to help individuals and companies manage their software updates more effectively in the future:
- Download software updates as soon as they become available. Reports have shown that security vulnerabilities in software are typically exploited within 19 days of being discovered, and yet, organizations take over 100 days on average to install updates that fix these vulnerabilities.
- Switch on automatic updates. In your settings, you can set your device to automatically install the latest software updates. This can also be scheduled when your device is not in use to prevent downtime.
- Only download software updates from trusted vendors. Avoid sketchy links in emails and go directly to the main website for updates.
- Keep an eye on update notifications. While many software updates might be automatic, you may have to manually update specific ones.
- Remember to install all updates. While you may be tempted to simply update the necessary applications and software, your device will operate more effectively with everything updated.
- Avoid updating software while connected to untrusted networks. Try to update software only from trusted networks to avoid suspicious connections and hacking.
These tips and tricks will ensure that your software updates are done efficiently and easily. However, healthy security practices can only go so far as to protect your infrastructure from the growing number of evolved threats in the modern digital landscape. To ensure proper cybersecurity, you need to invest in a robust, innovative, and intuitive cybersecurity vendor that goes the extra mile – which is where Sangfor Technologies steps in.
Sangfor’s Cybersecurity Solutions
Sangfor is committed to providing enhanced, elevated, and affordable cybersecurity solutions and IT infrastructure that will protect you from known and unknown cyber threats with proactive measures and comprehensive coverage. These are some of the many cybersecurity products available from Sangfor today.
- Sangfor Network Secure, previously known as Sangfor NGAF, is the world’s first Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) to combine AI Technology, Cloud Threat Intelligence, NG-WAF, IoT Security, and SoC Lite - seamlessly eliminating over 99% of external threats at the network perimeter.
- Next, Sangfor’s Endpoint Secure provides a modern Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) that combines antivirus, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and endpoint management capabilities into a single solution.
- Sangfor’s Anti-ransomware platform is the only security solution that addresses the entire life cycle of ransomware attacks while using AI and the synergy between Network Secure and Endpoint Secure to detect and block ransomware attacks in just 3 seconds.
- Lastly, Sangfor Security GPT is the groundbreaking innovation that merges Generative AI with advanced cybersecurity to enhance detection accuracy and operational efficiency. The platform speeds up investigation, enables proactive threat hunting, and streamlines incident responses through simple chat-based interactions - harnessing data from over 20,000 real-world devices and constantly learning and evolving to stay at the forefront of security detection and investigation.
As companies strive to protect their systems and data from evolving cyber threats, it’s important to take note of the smaller details in your security fortification. Software updates and patches might seem easy to simply ignore, however, they have countless benefits and potential risks if ignored – as we’ve covered above. As we venture further into 2024’s Cyber Security Awareness Month, let us take responsibility by prioritizing software updates and patch management and following the best practices we’ve listed as our commitment to leading a more secure cyber lifestyle. Contact Sangfor today for information on enhancing cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity or visit www.sangfor.com to learn more.
