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Assess Your Patch Management on ‘I Need a Patch for That Day’

Mon, 20 May 2019 21:16:36 Z

May 21st marks the annual 'I Need A Patch For That' awareness day. This is the ideal yearly reminder to assess your patch management initiatives and look at how you protect your network from malicious actors, as well as providing valuable lessons to learn from all year round.

New research has revealed that businesses are increasingly being targeted by malicious actors, more so than the individual consumer – detections of cyberattacks targeted at enterprises increased by 195% compared to Q1 2018. With this in mind, it’s crucial that businesses are doing everything they can to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.

However, time and time again, high-profile security incidents show that many businesses are still failing to implement basic cybersecurity ‘best practices’. WannaCry originally highlighted this in 2017, but since then we have seen numerous high-profile cyberattacks, such as those announced by Facebook and BA last year. Cybercriminals are able to rely on the same tried and tested techniques, according to Verizon, as businesses are failing to learn from their mistakes and are not keeping on top of routine patches to mitigate cyber-risks.

Cutting down the noise surrounding cybersecurity is integral to protecting a company and its data. Going ‘back to basics’ will simplify cybersecurity practices and make it easier for businesses to spot and resolve vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by blackhat hackers.

Go ‘Back to Basics’ With Patching

Starting with a comprehensive and effective patch management programme, you can layer up your business’s cybersecurity strategy to further minimise risks. Ensuring that your organisation is protected from the ground up is key, and there is no better way to start than by patching known vulnerabilities as a priority.

Businesses that fail to properly and efficiently implement patches are only putting themselves at risk. Arizona Beverages is an unfortunate example of this as it was recently hit by a large-scale ransomware attack that was attributed to unpatched and obsolete, outdated software that had passed End Of Life (EOL), providing hackers with an easy way into its network.

With an effective patch management system in place, the software and programmes that a company has installed, whether used frequently or left by the wayside, will be updated and secured with the latest bug fixes and entry points plugged. This practice essentially stops hackers exploiting holes in your network that are known to the developer. As well as this, businesses need to make sure that any software that has gone EOL is removed in order to mitigate risk.

Layering up

While patching is one of the most crucial cybersecurity practices, utilising a layered approach is the best way to ensure all-round protection. It’s important to remember that, while you may have a solid patch management programme, software that has reached End Of Life will no longer receive patches and updates from its developer. The longer your business operates using this software the more at risk it will become so it is essential to remove vulnerable, out of date software as soon as possible. Training is another simple but vital way to protect against cyberattacks.

Additional tools such as vulnerability management, privilege access management, application whitelisting and ensuring that regular system back-ups are implemented are also essential to a layered approach to cybersecurity. Supporting patching and other key security practices with added layers of protection can help to reduce attack surfaces, detect attacks quickly and allow cybersecurity professionals to take rapid action if the worst should happen.

Cybersecurity can be complicated, but there is no need for it to be. ‘I Need A Patch For That’ day is a reminder that all businesses need is a best practice outlook that focuses on the foundations of cybersecurity, such as patching, education and the removal of legacy software.

Ivanti User Workspace Management (formerly AppSense) Release Schedule

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 15:15:47 Z

Earlier this year the Ivanti User Workspace Management Product Team announced a quarterly release cadence. Quarterly cadence means that you, our customers, will have access to new releases roughly every three months. One reason was to align more closely with the Microsoft and Citrix release schedules – see these articles for details on their latest releases:

Aligning to the new quarterly cadence has helped us to respond faster to the needs of the market and deliver greater value to you, our customers and partners. You can engage with Ivanti and see your contributions and feedback (click on “Ideas” here) influencing our product development on a faster time scale than with our previous release model.

This blog post is simply an update on that release schedule, and a recap of what we have released so far.

User Workspace Management Release Model

Major Annual Release (delivered as an MSI – a complete Windows Installer setup)

Once a year, usually in the second quarter, we will make available a major release which will be named with the year number and “.1”. This will contain all the features introduced in the previous minor feature updates, as well as additional content that requires a longer development path.

Quarterly Release (delivered as an MSP – a Windows Installer patch)

Twice a year we will release Service Updates (also known as Service Packs) which will contain a rollup of any hotfixes in the previous quarter.
In addition, once a year, usually in the fourth quarter, we will release a minor feature update which will contain a combination of improvements over the previous major release, enhancements requested by customers, new features, and advancements of existing features. The nature of changes will determine if the minor feature update will be delivered as a MSI or MSP. This release will be named with the year number and “.3” indicating that development work is usually completed during the 3^rd quarter.

As you can see in the timeline chart below, June 2018 saw our first major release using a new naming convention. The June release is versioned as User Workspace Manager 2018.1.

“Tier One” Releases

After every feature update is completed by our Engineering team, we then enter a short period of Field Test with select customers and internal production users. This involves a live upgrade on a customer site so that we can catch any issues that only manifest themselves in production environments. Once we have fixed any issues that arise, the release will then go forward for General Availability download on the Ivanti community site.

If you would like more detail on the User Workspace Management Field Test Program please email hannah.curtis@ivanti.com

Upgrading

Customers who don’t want to take advantage of the quarterly release cycle should continue to plan their upgrades in line with the major annual releases. Each major release will be maintained for 3 years, but priority for updates and hotfixes will be given to the most recent releases.

The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions or incorporated into any contract.

Ivanti Gives Back at the Charity Bike Build

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 23:38:21 Z

The Daresbury UK Ivanti office's engineering teams and product managers for User Workspace Management have just successfully completed a charity bike building event.

Our charity bike building event is a unique and challenging team building activity with the single aim of supporting local charity and community projects.

The local charity chosen was On Side. On Side works with young, under-privileged people aged 8 to 19 years old. It provides fun activities and learning programs for young people to socialize in a safe, positive way.

We wanted the bikes to go to children who would get best use of them and potentially change their lives for the better.

When we handed the bikes over a few days ago, two of the children were thrilled to be given something brand new and personal to themselves. They explained how the bikes would help them get to and from both school and On Side.

On the day, teams were randomly selected and invited in to a room where each team was allocated a workshop area with tool kit, bike stand, and a partly assembled bike.

Each team then allocated a skill to each member – brakes, gears, comfort, wheels, steering or quality. The teams were then invited to send individuals to knowledge workshops to gain the skills necessary to safely and competently build the bike.

Once the workshops were completed, the teams needed to regroup and share their knowledge to create a build plan. With build plan approved, the team could then begin the build.

As you would expect, things were not straightforward. Teams did not have all the parts or tools they needed. They also had to earn money to purchase additional items. To gain resources, teams had to solve mini challenges, or get on a bike and race up a hill!

Once the team believed its bike was complete, the bike was then tested and certified by an engineer, and ready to go to the charity.

Ivanti’s New Release Cadence for DesktopNow and DesktopNow Plus

Fri, 24 Feb 2017 17:33:15 Z

We’re excited to announce our new quarterly release cadence. In addition to aligning the former AppSense product lines with the Ivanti Management Suite products, the new cadence means that you, our customers, will have access to new releases every three months. It also aligns more closely to the Citrix update model for our joint customers. See the Citrix release schedule post.

These quarterly releases will remove the need for the release of service packs (from 10.1 onwards), although we will continue to produce hot fixes as needed throughout the year.

Aligning to the new quarterly cadence will help us to respond faster to the needs of the market and deliver greater value to you, our customers and partners. You will be able to engage with Ivanti AppSense and see your contributions and feedback influencing our product development in a faster timeframe than with our previous release model.

New release model (here’s the detail):

Major annual MSI release (delivered as an MSI – a complete Windows Installer setup)

A major annual release will contain all the features introduced in the minor releases made available that year, as well as additional content that requires a development path over and above a quarterly release timescale.

Quarterly release (delivered as an MSP – a Windows Installer patch)

Each quarter, customers will gain access to a new Feature Release (FR) which contains a combination of improvements to the previous major release, enhancements requested by customers, new features, and advancements of existing features.

The first quarterly release will be Ivanti DesktopNow 10.1 FR1.

Our first major annual release was DesktopNow 10.1. in January of this year. The next major release is targeted for January 2018, when we will be switching to a new release naming convention (see below) – that release will be DesktopNow 2018.0

Upgrading

Customers who don’t want to take advantage of the quarterly release cycle should continue to plan their upgrades in line with the major annual releases. Each release will be maintained for three years, but priority for updates and hot fixes will be given to the most recent releases.

The data provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a commitment, promise or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions or incorporated into any contract.