Testing Your Patches
In this lesson, we will discuss the process of patch testing.
We'll cover the following...
So we’ve found out-of-date software on our network. We know we want to patch it as soon as possible. But how soon is possible?
The answer is going to be a little different for every organization. You’ll have to decide how comfortable you are with a given vendor’s track record of providing stable patches. The answer will also depend on the criticality of the system to be patched, the severity of the vulnerability, and the availability of workarounds for the vulnerability. These variables are outside of your control. The only thing that you can do to speed up the deployment of a patch is to have a set of tests ready to give you a quick yes or no on the question of whether the patch will break things.