How do you measure and report the effectiveness and impact of your patching activities?

1 Identify your patching goals and scope

Before you start patching, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and what you need to patch. Your patching goals should align with your security and business objectives, such as reducing vulnerabilities, improving compliance, or enhancing functionality. Your patching scope should include all the systems and applications that are relevant for your organization, such as servers, endpoints, network devices, or software. You should also prioritize your patching based on the risk and impact of each system and application.

2 Implement a patching process and schedule

Once you have defined your patching goals and scope, you need to implement a patching process and schedule that suit your organization's needs and resources. Your patching process should include steps such as scanning for vulnerabilities, testing patches, deploying patches, verifying patches, and documenting patches. Your patching schedule should balance the frequency and timing of patching with the availability and performance of your systems and applications. You should also communicate your patching process and schedule to your stakeholders, such as users, managers, or auditors.

3 Monitor and measure your patching performance

To assess the effectiveness and impact of your patching activities, you need to monitor and measure your patching performance using various metrics and indicators. Some examples of patching metrics are patch coverage, patch compliance, patch quality, patch speed, and patch cost. Patch coverage measures how many systems and applications are patched within your scope. Patch compliance measures how well you adhere to your patching goals and standards. Patch quality measures how well the patches work and how they affect your systems and applications. Patch speed measures how quickly you can patch your systems and applications. Patch cost measures how much resources you spend on patching.

4 Report and communicate your patching results

To demonstrate the value and impact of your patching activities, you need to report and communicate your patching results to your stakeholders, such as users, managers, or auditors. Your patching reports should include the data and analysis of your patching metrics, as well as the achievements and challenges of your patching activities. Your patching communication should include the benefits and risks of your patching activities, as well as the recommendations and actions for improvement. You should also use appropriate formats and channels for your patching reports and communication, such as dashboards, emails, or presentations.

5 Review and improve your patching activities

To ensure that your patching activities are continuously effective and impactful, you need to review and improve your patching activities based on the feedback and lessons learned from your patching performance and results. You should evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your patching goals, scope, process, schedule, metrics, and reports. You should also identify the gaps and opportunities for improvement in your patching activities. You should then implement the changes and enhancements that will optimize your patching activities and outcomes.

6 Align your patching activities with incident handling

Patching is not only a preventive measure, but also a reactive measure for incident handling. When you face a security incident, such as a breach, an attack, or a compromise, you may need to patch your systems and applications as part of your incident response and recovery. Therefore, you should align your patching activities with your incident handling framework, such as the NIST SP 800-61 or the SANS Incident Handling Process. You should also integrate your patching metrics and reports with your incident metrics and reports, such as the incident impact, root cause, or remediation.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?