For decades altogether, patch management has been the first line of defense for cyberattacks. Be it WannaCry or NotPetya - time after time, we have witnessed the devastating risks of unpatched software.
Not just the cybersecurity aspect - patching as a strategy is crucial even for maintaining the seamless, day-to-day functioning of an organization's endpoints. Keeping the firmware patched and the software regularly updated ensures that they are loaded with the newest features and are free from bugs.
Even then, organizations struggle to keep their systems patched. The 2024 Trend Micro Cyber Risk Report states,
This article delves into the challenges that cause the patch management process to be delayed and how that can be mitigated.
Here are some of the reasons why patching is delayed, despite its crucial role in cybersecurity and IT activities:
Applying patches-especially to production systems-carries the risk of breaking functionality, causing outages, or triggering software conflicts. In environments that demand high availability (like healthcare, finance, or manufacturing), IT teams are hesitant to deploy patches without extensive testing, which itself consumes time and resources.
Patching is a labor-intensive process when done manually. On top of it, bandwidth constraints force IT teams to prioritize only specific patches, leaving the network vulnerable to others. In larger organizations that house thousands of endpoints, the teams grapple to find the right balance between the multitude of patches released and the number of systems that are missing those patches.
Many enterprises do not have an accurate, real-time inventory of all endpoints, servers, third-party applications, or IoT devices. Shadow IT, unmanaged assets, and remote endpoints often fall through the cracks. Without complete visibility, IT teams can't patch what they don't know exists.
Some patches-especially those involving operating systems or business-critical apps-require validation in a staging environment before deployment. This testing process slows down patch cycles significantly. In some cases, IT teams might delay indefinitely if they lack a reliable test environment.
When dozens or even hundreds of patches are released every month, admins suffer from "alert fatigue." It becomes challenging to differentiate between critical updates and those with lower risk. Without prioritization, teams can become overwhelmed and default to delay.
Delaying a patch doesn't just delay an update - it opens the door to exploit. The longer a known vulnerability remains unpatched, the more likely it is to be weaponized. Here are the primary risks associated with delaying patches:
Threat actors actively monitor vulnerability feeds like CVE and NVD. Once a security flaw is disclosed and a patch released, cybercriminals quickly reverse-engineer the fix to create exploit code.
Data breach incidents such as the Equifax breach point out to us how patching vulnerabilities is a race against time. Delays, even by days, can leave systems exposed to automated exploits, malware kits, or ransomware.
Unpatched systems often serve as the initial point of entry for ransomware attacks. Once inside, attackers move laterally across networks, encrypting data or escalating privileges. Exploits like EternalBlue (used in WannaCry and NotPetya) relied entirely on unpatched Windows systems. Organizations that patched promptly were protected; those that delayed paid the price.
Not just exposed systems or doorways to ransomware, delaying patches also increase the likelihood of being targeted by cyberattacks and advanced persistent threats.Once a vulnerability is publicly disclosed, threat actors begin scanning for unpatched systems within hours. Moreover, delaying the deployment of critical or high severity patches can compound risk across interconnected systems - compromising the entire network, allowing attackers to escalate privileges and exfiltrate sensitive data.
Most cybersecurity frameworks and data privacy regulations mandate timely application of patches as part of their control requirements. These include:
Non-compliance not only leads to regulatory penalties but can also impact an organization's ability to secure partnerships or customers.
Beyond security, patches often fix bugs, memory leaks, performance lags, and application crashes. By delaying these fixes, organizations may suffer from avoidable downtime or degraded system performance. In industries with tight SLAs or real-time systems, this can translate into lost revenue.
Breaches tied to delayed patching often become headline news. Customers, investors, and partners see this as a sign of poor IT hygiene. Trust, once lost, takes years to rebuild-and can directly impact revenue and market reputation.
While patching delays are sometimes unavoidable, especially in complex enterprise environments, there are proven ways to reduce their impact and improve response times.
Not all high severity vulnerabilities are likely to be exploited. In general, not all the vulnerabilities carry equal weightage - and hence, it is important to prioritize the ones that are crucial.
Implementing a risk-based prioritization framework helps prioritize vulnerabilities in the right order. An ideal risk-based approach should focus on the following metrics:
This approach ensures that patches with the highest potential impact are applied first, reducing the attack surface quickly.
Automation reduces human error, accelerates response, and ensures consistency across distributed environments-including remote endpoints. To automate the patching process, organizations can implement endpoint management solutions or standalone patching tools that automate patch detection, approval workflows, and deployment.
Create a dedicated testing environment where patches can be deployed and validated for functional accuracy without disrupting the production environment. This environment will be ideal to test compatibility, performance, and rollback procedures. Once tested, patches can be confidently rolled out to the systems across the network, thereby significantly cutting down risks.
Implement continuous asset discovery to track all devices, applications, and systems on your network. Real-time visibility ensures no critical system is missed during patch rollouts and helps identify unauthorized, unmanaged, or shadow devices that could pose security risks.
Clear internal SLAs help IT teams prioritize the deployment of patches, helping cut down the noise. Based on the severity of the patches, you can set internal SLAs in a similar way as mentioned below:
Governance policies should define patch ownership, change management approval processes, and exception handling for postponed patches.
Regular patch compliance reports help track progress and identify gaps. These reports, combined with security awareness trainings for IT teams, can reinforce the importance of timely updates as part of the organization's cybersecurity posture.
By now, we understand the challenges in patch management that often delay the process. Whether it's due to manual processes, lack of visibility, or operational bottlenecks, slow patch cycles can expose your organization to avoidable breaches, compliance violations, and costly downtime.
To mitigate this, admins can implement ManageEngine Patch Manager Plus - a reliable patch management software. This enables admins to automate and control every step of the patch management process, starting with automated scanning and detection to testing and deployment to the required systems.
Implementing automation lets IT teams close security gaps faster, negating the need for manual efforts and delaying the process. To understand how it can help your organization bring down the mean time to patch vulnerabilities drastically, try out the 30-day free trial.
Delaying a patch leaves systems exposed to known exploits, increasing the risk of breaches, data loss, and ransomware attacks.
Ideally, critical patches should be applied within 24-72 hours. The longer the delay, the greater the risk - especially for actively exploited vulnerabilities.
Failure to patch can lead to non-compliance with standards like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR, potentially resulting in audits, fines, or legal consequences.
Patching closes security loopholes attackers often target. It's one of the most effective ways to prevent breaches and maintain a secure IT environment.
Automation streamlines scanning, testing, approval, and deployment - helping IT teams patch faster, minimize errors, and maintain consistent compliance.
