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Patching Paranoia - How Fast Do You Patch?

Posted by Cliff on from the closing-the-holes dept.

selfassembled asks: "I work for an IT group in the Boston area called Thrive Networks. After the most recent exploit was revealed, my company scrambled to get our client's servers patched within 48 hours. This is extremely difficult because no customer wants to be interrupted by a reboot during business hours. Our staff worked after hours to get this patch installed ASAP. How fast do you (or your IT group) install patches for major exploits like this? What do you consider to be an acceptable turn around time for a vulnerability patch that may not even have an exploit yet? After Blaster and Welchia we decided it's better to be safe than sorry, and our customers seem to agree."

2 of 681 comments (clear)

  1. If you ran openBSD servers then by cdn-programmer · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    If you ran openBSD servers then

    1) you would save your clients money
    2) you would not likely have to reboot
    3) you would probably not have the exploit in the first place

    Windows is a big make work project.

  2. Gave up on Windows by Ridgelift · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    After 7 years of working in IT (started with NetWare, then NT, now Linux), life has never been easier with Debian GNU/Linux. Most of the time, a reboot is not necessary, which means servers can be updated from remote with a high degree of certainty that a visit will not be required. I now live about an hour's drive from my nearest client. They're running two servers, one in a DMZ with an Internet-acessible app, the other behind the firewall with SAMBA, backup and intranet web server. Both run Debian GNU/Linux stable for a small network of about 30 Windows workstations.

    Working with Microsoft products is emotionally not worth it. Too much change in the way administration needs to be done. Too many problems with viruses, worms, bad patches, politics, hardware requrements, and application interaction. I have other colleagues who work more than me with longer hours and make a lot more money because they're constantly fixing Windows, but I'm happily married with two children and focussing my efforts on Python and Perl scripting so I can automate even more adminsitration.

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