Who's Responsible For Patching Your Business?

What's your business's patch policy, who's in charge of it -- and should Microsoft's latest Biggest Patch Tuesday Ever prompt you to review it?Big Patch Tuesdays are like little Patch Tuesdays, the joke goes, only more so.

Which means that today's record-breaking Microsoft patch deployment is even more than that.

Even as the massive repair rollout -- explained, at least in part, as Microsoft's attempt to reduce the number of patches released during the approaching holiday season, when many retail businesses lock their systems until after the shopping rush are -- rolls your way, it's time to ask how satisfied you are with your business's current patch policy and its administration.

And it's a good time to ask. Although Microsoft identifies four of the 16 bulletins as critical, and ten as important, two as moderate, a huge Patch Tuesday should cause no more haste (or panic) than a moderate one. Patching your systems should be a steady-handed response more than an excessively rapid one, as has been noted here before.

So while big businesses and others are test-bedding the patches and making sure all is well after required reboots, and while you're waiting for reports of any patch problems to make the news, consider calling in your patch team (assuming you have one) and taking a look at how that most recent huge patch deployment (worth looking at smaller ones too).

Here are some good questions to start with:

Who's in charge of seeing that all patches are deployed? How do they go about achieving that assurance? Were all patch deployments accomplished successfully? How confident are you that your company's software and devices -- not just Microsoft products -- are fully patched? Where can you tighten up the procedure, both for efficiency and added assurance that all patchable holes are indeed filled? Is there sufficient documentation and recording of the patch process and its results?

Work outward from these until you've developed a good, thorough picture of the patching procedures and policies that are in place at your business, address those areas you're dissatisfied with or feel can be improved, and your next Patch Tuesday, big or little, will benefit, as will all the other patches that continue to come at us.