IT support experts in Austin increasingly recommends software patches as these can be that which ultimately saves you from total disaster. Consider 2017’s WannaCry attack. It happened this way: the NSA built a backdoor into Windows machines, intended as a surveillance window. That information became public in March of 2017, and by May of 2017, North Korea had engineered and launched a bitcoin ransomware worm so effective that it managed to affect businesses in 150+ countries.
The reason for this effectiveness was the worm’s exploitation of an inbuilt vulnerability defining networks of a certain size. This vulnerability was exploitable without internal employee error, leaving many businesses wide open for ransom. Meanwhile, organizations that had patch protocols in place had this vulnerability sewn up well before there was ever any threat. The lesson here is that the faster you can get patches to operations uploaded and installed, the better. But there are operational difficulties which can act as impediments to patches. Several you need to be aware of and work to overcome include:
- Administrative Roadblocks
- Insufficient Software Development Contact
- Necessary Time and Available Resources
Administrative Roadblocks
IT support experts in Austin can help your business work to overcome internal red tape. Consider this: when a small business starts out, it is perfectly legitimate for managerial personnel to make decisions pertaining to specific patches. This may even be a desirable situation, as there are situations when it is best to wait for one more iteration of a patch before a said patch is applied. But as a business gets bigger, it isn’t feasible to rely on upper management for such decisions. There could be a very limited window, wherein not applying a patch ends up crashing the whole network. A better solution is to work with a trusted MSP and institute protocols which automatically provide patch support as it becomes available.
Insufficient Software Development Contact
Software developers can be integral parts of informing your patching decisions. But oftentimes, the cares of business can make it so that you fall out of contact with them, and so miss not just patching needs, but fundamentally necessary software innovations that could help you in terms of competitiveness, productivity, and streamlined operations. Ensure your contact with developers is where it ought to be.
Necessary Time and Available Resources
Sometimes, a patch takes time to install and has a high cost behind it. Sometimes, such a thing will tax the system at just the wrong moment if you’re not careful. What’s wise here is working with an MSP. An internal team has to stay on top of developing patches, and they’ve got to devote their time to applying them, rather than troubleshooting as necessary. When you’ve got an outsourced tech provider, it’s their prerogative to remain cutting edge, and the right MSP has costs that are predictable on a monthly basis anyway, meaning you can arrange something, which includes patch protocols.
Getting Impediments to Reliability Removed
IT support in Austin through Contigo Technology can help you identify where “choke points” exist in your regular operations which may hamper solutions. Contact us now for solutions that are reliable, and which are also affordable.