MSP Focus
Patching and priorities – what do your customers need to know?
By Karun Malik, vice president strategic alliances at Qualys. T
here are so many things calling on our attention today. From family and work, through to the estimated average of between 5,000 and 10,000
advertisements we see on a daily basis, we have to prioritise what is most important to us. In IT, we face the same problem. Every month, we have a batch of new software updates from the likes of Microsoft and Adobe. Every month, we will see new software vulnerabilities discovered. All of these problems clamour for our attention. According to the CVE list, 25,228 new vulnerabilities
were discovered during 2022. Each of these issues represents a potential security risk. How can we help our customers deal with the problems that exist around patching?
Scoping out the problem Patching is one of those necessary IT tasks that has to be carried out to keep systems running, secure and operational. However, it is also a challenge to keep all these assets up to date. Internal IT teams are stretched with supporting application development, implementation projects and business requests, so keeping the lights on around patching can easily slip down the ‘to do’ list. With so many issues coming in every month, it is easy to fall behind. Helping your customers improve their
efficiency around patching can take care of those ongoing processes. You can help through advice and consultation on what they should be doing, but most companies would actually benefit more from help to implement patches more efficiently. This can include managing the patching process for them as a service. Automating patch deployment across the
do not have to interact with the service to have updates applied. Patching is a pain point for most organisations that requires extra resources and cost to support, while poor roll-outs lead to longer exposure times and more risk. Alongside the technical side of patching, you will
also have to work with your customers to educate their staff on what is involved and how they can avoid potential problems. For example, there may be different individuals or teams involved in support and service that don’t collaborate well, or employees at your customers may not want to turn off machines when they are working. Providing out of hours
changes can lead to overtime costs if you have to cover these manually. Instead, combine your education campaign with automation so you can keep customers informed and services running smoothly.
“Automating patch deployment
across the systems and devices that your clients
systems and devices that your clients use is one of those offerings that can deliver real, tangible benefits to them. Providing services around patching relies on automation to deploy those updates out easily, particularly around applications like Google Chrome that regularly require updates. This should cover the common operating systems that run on endpoints – Windows, Mac and Linux – but you will also have to consider how to support third party applications as well as mobile devices too. Customers expect a one-stop-shop that covers all their assets, so look
at how you can make things easy for them. Ideally, you should provide this as a zero-touch patching service, so your customers and their users
16 | June 2023
use is one of those offerings that can deliver real, tangible benefits to them.”
Creating a service that your customers can’t live without Patching efficiently ensures that your customers are protected against threats and they can concentrate on their business objectives rather than managing devices. Automation helps you scale this service and make it more effective for you and for your customers. On top of this automation, you can apply your consulting and support skills to deal with edge cases or potential problems. You can also layer on more security and vulnerability advice to help your customers stay protected against threats, providing more business opportunities over time. You should also provide analysis on
those campaigns and roll-outs, and any gaps or potential problems where patches have not been deployed. This may be due to edge cases, like machines in conference rooms that don’t have specific users every day, or where machines are not connected to networks.
Alternatively, specific users may not accept those patch deployments and put them off. By working together with
your customers, you can solve those problems and educate their users. Your end goal should be to make life easier for your customers
around patching and prioritising issues. When there are so many issues to look after, taking care of patching can help them focus on what makes the most difference to their business. By cutting out the noise and getting things done, you can be an essential part of their team.
www.pcr-online.biz
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