Exploring patch and vulnerability management

Very often, software and operating system vendors release updates, patches, and hotfixes for their products. These updates and patches usually contain fixes to known bugs, improve security, add new features, and improve the overall performance. Each application and operating system will automatically check periodically for new updates and if any are available, they will be downloaded and installed. Users are able to manually download the necessary updates from the software vendor's website and install them on their systems. This process is workable for just a couple of systems within a small network such as a Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) network. On a large enterprise network, system administrators have to take a different approach to updating the systems on the network.

Within a large organization, IT professionals have to ensure they are keeping track of the versions of applications and operating systems within their network...