Are you ever working away on an important project when a message pops up in the corner of your computer screen telling you updates are ready to be installed? Somehow it always happens when you’re in the middle of something really crucial. Pausing work and restarting your computer would be a pain, so you click “Remind me later” and forget all about it… until the next time that message pops up.
Or suppose you’re on your phone and you open the app store. Somehow there are 29 app updates waiting for download. You didn’t even know you had 29 apps! It doesn’t feel too urgent, and you need to use your phone right now, so you ignore the notifications and just carry on with what you were doing.
We’ve all been in these situations, and yes, they’re very annoying. But ignoring updates is risky, and it could have very serious consequences for your business. Before you dismiss that irritating pop-up, read on to find out why small updates are a crucial part of keeping your IT systems secure.
Protecting your business
These frequent updates are known as patches. When a vulnerability is detected in an operating system or piece of software, developers spring into action. Rather than wait for the next big system update, they create a patch: a small-scale, quick-to-install update that’s especially targeted to fix the new vulnerability and keep the computer safe in the meantime. It’s like putting a sticking plaster on a cut to make sure it heals up and no nasty bugs get in.
Cybercriminals are always active, finding and exploiting the smallest crack in a system’s structure. That’s why patches come out so often, and it’s why putting them off until tomorrow is a bad idea – no matter how tempting it seems. That missed system update might just put your business’s sensitive data at risk.
Falling behind
Ignoring updates may be bad practice, but in reality, it’s something many people do every day. Recently, cyber security authorities in the US, UK and Australia published a report listing the 30 most exploited vulnerabilities. The top four were all originally discovered between 2018 and 2020. Given that we’re now in 2021, this means that a whole lot of people – and organisations – are routinely skipping those updates and leaving the door open to hackers.
So what do you do if you just can’t spare the time to install updates as and when they come in? There’s a simple solution: work with a trustworthy IT support partner. Patch management is a crucial part of day-to-day IT maintenance. It can be carried out strategically to ensure minimum disruption and downtime for you and your team. It’s easy to install patches remotely, so you won’t even realise it’s happening.
At Perigon One, patch management is just one aspect of our comprehensive IT support services. If you’d like to talk about your security needs, just get in touch. We’ll be happy to hear from you!
