VentureBeat is hosting an exclusive executive event called AI Unleashed. It’s a great opportunity for enterprise data leaders to network and learn from industry peers. Now, here’s the thing, most organizations are completely clueless about the number of exposed and outdated endpoints they have. And let’s not even talk about whether their remote and hybrid workers are safe or not. The poor IT and security teams are overwhelmed with work and conflicting priorities. Unfortunately, it often takes a major intrusion or breach for them to finally prioritize patching. On the other hand, cyber attackers, those crafty individuals, know the weak spots of a network better than the admin themselves. These cybercrime gangs and state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat threat actors are responsible for some of the biggest breaches in history. They can infiltrate a target’s network with ease, leaving businesses vulnerable and helpless. It’s a harsh reality, but complacency can be deadly, especially when it comes to understanding where all the endpoints are and whether they’re updated or not. Shockingly, more than half of enterprises have no idea about 75% of the endpoint devices on their network. And even worse, only around 58% can identify attacked or vulnerable assets within 24 hours of an exploit. That means there’s a significant chunk of endpoints that organizations can’t even identify. It’s like leaving the doors of your home unlocked while you’re on vacation. Time to get serious, folks. Did you know that only 43% of IT professionals are using unified endpoint management? It’s crazy, right? Unified endpoint management is such an underutilized system when it comes to protecting remote and hybrid workers. It’s time to change that. According to Ivanti’s 2023 report on the New Imperatives for Digital Employee Experience, patching is an area where IT teams tend to procrastinate. They find it complex, cumbersome, and time-consuming. And with remote work becoming the norm, patch management has become even more challenging. It’s like a ticking time bomb, just waiting for a breach or intrusion to make everyone scramble and prioritize those damn patches. Absolute Software’s 2023 Resilience Index confirms this. They found that over 50% of endpoints aren’t fully patched or updated. And the longer a remote or hybrid employee’s laptop goes without a reboot, the more vulnerable they become. It’s a mess, really. The dark web is having a field day with remote and hybrid workers. They’ve got all sorts of tools and apps designed to defeat what little security these workers have. I’m talking about keyloggers, trojans, phishing kits, and other malware. These scumbags even sell generative AI-based VPN, vulnerability, and exploit tools. Just imagine the damage they can do with those. But fear not, my friends, because AI-powered patch management is here to save the day. By automating patch management with AI and machine learning, we can close those gaps in vulnerabilities that attackers love to exploit. There are some leading providers to consider, like Automox, Canonica—I mean Canonical, Flexera, and Ivanti Neurons for Patch Intelligence, just to name a few. Srinivas Mukkamala, the chief product officer at Ivanti, says that organizations must utilize AI solutions to prioritize, validate, and apply patches. We need to offload those mundane tasks to machines so that our IT and security teams can focus on more strategic initiatives. And let me tell you about some key use cases of AI-powered patch management. First, we have the use of AI to automate patch deployments in real-time. This is a game-changer, my friends. It takes away the VPN dependency and makes life easier for help desks and ITSM teams. Then we have more autonomous patch prioritization. AI and ML algorithms analyze all the vulnerability data, threat intelligence, and business criticality to prioritize those urgent and high-risk patches. It’s like having your own personal AI assistant for patch management. And of course, we can’t forget about improving real-time endpoint visibility and control. Those manual and legacy approaches just don’t cut it anymore. With AI-based patch management systems, we can finally have accurate inventories of devices and full device configurations. It’s like having X-ray vision for your endpoints. Another fantastic use case is predictive patch scheduling at scale. AI can identify the optimal time windows to perform patches and automatically act on them. No more fire drills or panicking when a potential intrusion is detected. AI is here to save the day, my friends. Lastly, we need to remember that improving the digital employee experience is crucial for effective patch management. There are certain factors that challenge CISOs and CIOs when it comes to digital experiences. But if we can overcome these challenges, we can strengthen vulnerability management and make patch management more effective. It’s time to take patching seriously and make it a part of our company’s DNA. Attackers are always looking for weaknesses, so let’s not give them a chance. Stay safe out there, folks. And if you want to learn more about AI Unleashed, check out VentureBeat’s website. It’s gonna be one hell of an event. Peace out!
