Mobile patch not up to scratch

Shavlik's research highlighting that the majority of organisations (91%) are unable to cope with patching devices once users take them out of the office. As a result, organisations are leaving themselves seriously vulnerable to threats and attacks.

“With high profile hacks happening more than ever before, it’s vital that organisations are protected – and this includes when employees leave the office,” said Morten Gammelgard, sales manager EMEA, Shavlik. “Except for a few industries, workers will never become less mobile; it’s about time we stepped up to the challenge of protecting these mobile devices.”

Not only are organisations disregarding proactive protection of mobile devices at risk, but just over two-thirds (64%) of IT managers admit that they don’t truly understand how vulnerable users are to existing risks, let alone zero-day-style attacks. This is further highlighted with 37% of IT managers admitting that they still have to push patches out manually.

In addition, the research also emphasised that while organisations are more consistent in patching Microsoft systems, 66% fear that Microsoft patching options are not enough, and nearly half (49%) of IT manager worry that they haven’t adequately patched non-Microsoft systems.

“We are long past the time when it was excusable to forget about patching, but today patching represents a bare minimum baseline of security,” concludes Gammelgard. “It’s understandable that companies are struggling with mobile devices and non-Microsoft products, but with mobile working and the influx of consumer devices to the corporate network, this trend is only expected to increase over the coming years. As a result the time to get IT estates in order is now and IT managers need to start rolling out better automated patching methods for all devices as soon as possible.”