We're continuing our series for Cybersecurity Awareness Month focused on several key action steps to protect yourself and your company.
Key Action Step #2: Update Your Software
There are two types of “updater” personality types… There are the “bleeding edge” updaters and the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” updaters. Truth be told, they both have their merits. They also both have downsides.
Let’s start with why updates matter…
Technology changes. Rapidly. That goes without saying. And while developers are hard at work creating tools and technology to support your business, cyber criminals are working equally hard to find weaknesses in those tools they can exploit for a profit.
Part of a development team’s job is to protect against malicious intent. That said, sometimes weaknesses are found after software has been released or updated.
Software updates aren’t only about new features, they’re about security.
In fact, some softwares receive security-specific updates more frequently than feature updates.
Updates are THE method for closing security holes and reducing security risks. Cyber criminals will search out businesses using outdated software because they make easy targets.
“But isn’t updating software risky? What if it breaks something or changes how we’ve been using it?”
This is a legitimate concern. Businesses and teams rely on software working properly across the organization to get their jobs done. And development teams don’t know the specific use cases of every company or the other tools they’re working with. Which means major changes to those tools can cause disruption.
It comes down to risk assessment and “worst case” cost. Is it better to risk the possibility of needing a few extra hours to adapt to updates or to risk a data breach or malware insertion?
SPOILER ALERT: The risk of cyber threats is always more costly.
Not to mention the fact that having a managed service provider like Wellteck on your team means you have industry experts managing those updates for you. We get to know the intricate details of your technology systems so we can navigate which updates to conduct when and how to reduce the possibility of updates causing disrupting changes.
So if you have any questions about software management planning, definitely talk with one of our IT experts. We're happy to help.
