The Problem With Patches
from the too-many,-not-enough-info,-not-sexy dept
Security folks love to complain about sys admins who don't install software patches and leave themselves open to attacks. However, the fact is that there are so many patches coming out so often, it's impossible to keep up. It's also a boring job just patching software, and there's no real upfront incentive for most systems to make sure that they have the latest patches. As one analyst points out, it's not sexy to be patching software. They also suggest that software vendors need to communicate better the reasons (and importance) of various patches. Since companies (like Microsoft) come out with so many patches, no one knows when it's really time to patch things up.
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Patches Smatches
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Not always easy in a production environment
So far, I've had two different patches break applications (on the test servers) that a customer relies on. At that point it's meeting time to find work-arounds, risk analysis, etc. At least that part isn't boring...
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Wasted time?
Just for fun - does anybody wanna charge the software company for this time? hehehe
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