🔄 Patch Management

Fast, Safe, and Verifiable Updates Across Your Estate

SolveForce Patch Management keeps your operating systems, applications, firmware, and cloud images current, hardened, and auditable—without breaking what works. We design ringed rollouts, enforce maintenance windows, automate pre/post checks, and keep evidence for audits—so security, reliability, and compliance move in lockstep.

Patch Management is the heartbeat of 🛡️ IT Services and the enforcement arm of 🔒 Cybersecurity:

🎯 Objectives (What “Good” Looks Like)

  1. Reduce risk fast — Prioritize KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities), critical CVEs first.
  2. Don’t break production — Ringed rollout (canary → pilot → broad), pre-checks, post-checks, and rollback.
  3. Be auditable — Store evidence: versions, times, approvals, success/failure, tickets, and screenshots/logs.
  4. Keep users productive — Communicate windows, defer when justified, reboot smartly.
  5. Prove improvement — Metrics: Mean Time To Patch (MTTP), compliance %, exposure days, reboot success rates.

🧭 Scope (Everything We Patch)

  • Endpoints — Windows, macOS, Linux; browsers; productivity suites; agents (EDR/DLP/VPN).
  • Servers & Hypervisors — Windows/Linux, virtualization hosts; cluster-aware, rolling reboots.
  • Network & Security Gear — Switches, routers, WLAN controllers/APs, firewalls, VPN concentrators.
  • Storage & Appliances — SAN/NAS firmware, backup appliances, WAF/ADC, load balancers.
  • Cloud & Containers — AMIs/images, base container images, helm charts/manifests, platform runtimes.
  • Firmware & Drivers — BIOS/UEFI, NIC/HBA/RAID drivers, GPU drivers for AI workloads.

Ops landing zones: Networks & Data Centers • Cloud

🧩 Process (End-to-End, Every Cycle)

1) Intake & Prioritization

  • Feed sources: vulnerability scans, vendor advisories, CISA KEV, vendor RSS, and ticket flags.
  • Rate by CVSS, exploitability, asset criticality, exposure, and business calendar conflicts.
    → See: Vulnerability Assessments

2) Impact Analysis & Change Type

  • Standard (pre-approved, low-risk recurring), Normal (CAB-reviewed), Emergency (zero-day/active exploit).
  • Dependency mapping (CMDB), maintenance calendar, freeze windows (finance close, peak season).
    → ITSM guardrails within Managed IT

3) Ringed Rollout Strategy

  • Ring 0: Canary (lab/IT) → Ring 1: Pilot (low-risk prod subset) → Ring 2+: Broad waves.
  • App-aware scoping to avoid critical transaction windows; blue/green/rolling for servers.

4) Pre-Checks & Safeguards

  • Health baseline (CPU/RAM/disk, services), disk space, snapshot/backup, active users count.
  • Create VM snapshots, DB restore points, or image versions; confirm Backup Immutability in place.
    → Backup Immutability • DRaaS

5) Execution & Controls

  • Maintenance windows (region/time-zone), staged rings, unattended installs with idempotent tasks.
  • EDR quiet-time policies, bandwidth shaping on remote sites, WAN SLO monitoring.
    → NOC Services • Circuit Monitoring

6) Post-Checks & Rollback

  • Verify services/ports, application login, synthetic transactions, log noise, CPU spikes.
  • If broken: automatic rollback (snapshot/image), or incremental fix with vendor escalation.

7) Evidence & Reporting

  • Ticket linkage (Change→Incidents→Tasks), version diffs, device lists, success/failure, screenshots/logs.
  • Weekly executive summaries: coverage %, KEV closure rate, MTTP, exceptions with compensating controls.

🛠️ Platforms & Automation (Examples We Operate)

  • Endpoints/Servers — Native tools or RMM; Windows Update for Business / WSUS / Config Manager; macOS (MDM/Jamf); Linux (apt/yum/dnf/zypper).
  • Network/Security — Controller-based upgrades (WLC/AP), staged firmware on firewalls, ISSU/GR upgrades where supported.
  • Cloud — Image pipelines, base image refresh, rebuild-as-deploy with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and GitOps.
  • Containers — Base images rebuilt routinely; dependency scanning; admission policies and image signing.

→ Infrastructure as Code • DevOps / CI-CD

🔐 Security Integration (Patch + Protect)

  • EDR/XDR posture — Require minimum patch level before relaxing EDR policies. → EDR / MDR / XDR
  • Identity & Access — Admin roles scoped; time-boxed elevation via PAM; MFA enforced. → IAM / SSO / MFA • PAM
  • Network Controls — Isolation VLANs for out-of-date devices; NAC posture checks at the edge; ZTNA for remote. → NAC • ZTNA • Zero Trust
  • Data Safeguards — DLP rules during sensitive app updates; TLS pinning where relevant. → DLP • Encryption • PKI
  • Detection & Response — SIEM correlation for post-patch anomalies; SOAR runbooks for auto-remediation. → SIEM / SOAR

📐 Policy Standards & SLAs

  • Zero-day / KEV — emergency change; start within 24–72 hours per risk and business impact.
  • Critical (CVSS ≥ 9.0) — ≤ 7 days on Internet/DMZ; ≤ 14 days internal.
  • High (CVSS 7.0–8.9) — ≤ 30 days.
  • Medium/Low — scheduled cycles or tied to quarterlies.
  • Firmware/Drivers — vendor cadence; coordinate with capacity windows.
  • Exceptions — documented risk acceptance; compensating controls (WAF rule, IP allowlist, rate limit, stricter ACL, segmentation).
  • Reboots — grouped by wave; warn users; safe timers; resume after-hours if missed.

Compliance mapping: PCI DSS 6.2, ISO 27001 A.12.6, NIST SP 800-53 (SI-2/CM-2), HIPAA §164.308(a)(1).

🧪 Testing Strategies (Don’t Guess—Prove)

  • Unit / Smoke — service up, basic login, core API responds.
  • Integration — app flows across services (auth → DB → message bus).
  • Synthetic — scripted business journeys; fail marking if metrics deviate.
  • Performance — short load test when patch risks latency/cpu (JIT compilers, TLS stacks).
  • Security — post-patch scan; confirm CVE remediated and no new criticals introduced.
    → Vulnerability Assessments

🧮 Metrics That Matter

  • Patch Compliance % — by OS, app, site, and business unit.
  • MTTP — Mean Time To Patch (critical/high/KEV).
  • Exposure Days — (# vulnerable days × asset criticality).
  • Reboot Success Rate — per wave.
  • Failure Rate & Rollbacks — trend and root-cause.
  • KEV Closure Rate — week-over-week delta on exploited flaws.
  • Change Success Rate — (%) changes without incident.

Dashboards live in ITSM + NOC + SIEM/SOAR for a single pane.
→ NOC Services • SIEM / SOAR

🧑‍⚕️ Edge Cases & Compensating Controls

  • Legacy/End-of-Life Systems — isolate (microsegment), restrict to allowlists, WAF rules for exposed services, aggressive logging, plan for replacement.
  • OT/ICS & Medical Devices — vendor-approved patch lists; test in a like-for-like lab; add inline IPS and strict ACLs.
  • Regulated Windows — healthcare/finance/government change freezes; queue and stage for first available window.
  • Third-Party SaaS — verify provider SOC 2/ISO 27001 posture; ensure RACI for updates is clear.

🧰 Communications & User Experience

  • Heads-up notices (time zone-aware), with deferral options and a clear “why.”
  • Real-time status (portal/email/chat).
  • Post-window summary with incident and exception notes.
  • Self-service KB for “what changed” and common fixes.

→ Helpdesk Support • Collaboration Tools

✅ Implementation Checklist (Quick Start)

  1. Inventory & CMDB — trusted list of devices, OS, apps, firmware. → IT Asset Management
  2. Risk Policy — KEV/critical/high SLAs; exception workflow; RACI.
  3. Ring Plan — canary/pilot/broad with per-site maintenance windows.
  4. Backups/Snapshots — confirm immutability and rollback paths. → Backup Immutability
  5. Automation — tools and playbooks for each platform; dry-run on canary.
  6. Observability — pre/post metrics; alerts; incident triggers. → NOC Services
  7. Evidence — ITSM tickets, reports, screenshots/logs, and approvals for audits.

🔄 Where Patch Management Fits (Recursive View)

1) Grammar — Healthy links & devices reduce noise → Connectivity
2) Syntax — Stable cloud images/runtimes → Cloud
3) Semantics — Vulnerability closure + provable controls → Cybersecurity
4) Pragmatics — AI prioritizes risk, predicts impact, and auto-fixes low-risk items → SolveForce AI
5) Foundation — Consistent terminology and change rules → Primacy of Language
6) Map — Canonical index and cross-links → SolveForce Codex

📞 Engage SolveForce Patch Management

Close risk faster, with less drama, and full audit evidence.

Related pages:
Managed IT • NOC Services • Vulnerability Assessments • EDR / MDR / XDR • SIEM / SOAR • Backup Immutability • DRaaS • IT Asset Management • Knowledge Hub