Patch Management is the process of scanning, detecting, downloading, and deploying various patches for the Microsoft Windows operating systems. Patching your operating system is crucially important to protect yourself from security vulnerabilities, obtain new features, overall stability, and compatibility. To make a further point, most cyber-attacks will go after unpatched systems to take advantage of a known vulnerability.
Patching in general can be a headache from a management perspective, and thankfully, there are various different tools out there to help an administrator manage them more efficiently. Microsoft has provided administrators a few different tools to manage these tasks:
Windows Updates for Business – very specific Windows Update management for Windows 10 only.
Read more about it here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-manage-updates-wufb
Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) – a WSUS server will provide a central server to manage and automate updates. It can also serve as an update repository to streamline the download of updates over your internet connection. WSUS has the ability to update all of Microsoft’s operating systems as well as applications.
Read more about it here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-server-update-services/get-started/windows-server-update-services-wsus
Third-party applications– there are many that can manage Microsoft Windows Patches such as Remote Monitoring and Management software, Manage Engine, GFI LAN Guard, Solarwinds, PDQ Deploy, etc.
As you can see, there are various ways an administrator can tackle the task of Patch Management, and choosing the right one will come down to a mix of personal preference and system requirements.
