Patch Cadence & Patch Management Best Practices

Nearly every digital asset an organization uses to ensure continued productivity relies on software. For example, hardware, including servers and routers, requires firmware or operating systems. Software applications, even cloud-native ones, leverage code to work. The move towards digital transformation incorporates digital assets such as serverless functions and workloads, all consisting of code. These digital assets are often left vulnerable because their code may have coding issues that leave them open to cyberattacks.

To reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities, companies need to employ a patch management strategy and effective patch management best practices to address critical vulnerabilities and maintain business continuity.

What is Patching Cadence?

Patching cadence refers to how often an organization reviews systems, networks, and applications for software updates that remediate security vulnerabilities. Every endpoint, whether a server or a mobile device, runs on software created by code that can create backdoors, which cybercriminals use to access an organization’s IT ecosystem. Regular updates and monitoring patch status are essential components of any comprehensive vulnerability management program.

A well-defined patch management lifecycle ensures that security teams can effectively track and deploy software patches while minimizing security gaps across the organization’s infrastructure.

What are the Cybersecurity Risks Related to Patching Cadence?

Many cyber threats arise from commonly known vulnerabilities in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list. This list consists of publicly shared software vulnerabilities, meaning cybercriminals see they exist and seek to exploit them. Attacks against known vulnerabilities increased by 54% over the previous year, according to the Indusface State of Application Security Report 2024, indicating that attackers are becoming increasingly dependent on these unfixed vulnerabilities.

Zero-day vulnerability exploits represent an even greater threat, targeting previously unknown security flaws. Organizations must balance the need for immediate patch installation against potential compatibility issues that could disrupt operations.

With its international partners, the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA),  regularly updates its advisories on the most routinely exploited vulnerabilities. A key trend in 2025 has been a sharp increase in zero-day exploits, especially targeting widely used enterprise and perimeter network devices. The most impactful examples year-to-date include:

• Microsoft SharePoint: A chain of vulnerabilities was exploited for remote code execution and unauthorized access on on-premise SharePoint servers.
• Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE): An injection vulnerability allowed attackers to achieve remote code execution and gain root privileges.
• WinRAR: A zero-day path traversal flaw was exploited by a Russian-linked threat group to deliver backdoors and spy on organizations.
• SysAid On-Prem: Vulnerabilities were actively exploited for privilege escalation and remote code execution on the on-premise solutions.

CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog is continuously updated. In the first half of 2025 alone, 132 new CVEs were added, an 80% increase year-over-year. This underscores that both recent and older, persistent vulnerabilities remain actively exploited, and the rate of zero-day attacks is accelerating.

What is a Patch Management Process?

Establishing a patch management software process is one of the most important controls organizations can use to prevent a cyberattack. It involves creating policies and processes for discovering, remediating, and documenting the installation of security patches on an IT organization’s systems, networks, and software.

Patch management tools and processes enable IT departments to prioritize and coordinate vulnerability responses, ultimately mitigating the most prevalent cybersecurity risks. Automated patch management systems can significantly reduce the manual overhead while maintaining compliance standards throughout the organization.

Understanding Different Patch Types

Organizations must manage various patch types as part of their comprehensive strategy:

• Security patches: Address critical vulnerabilities and security flaws
• Feature updates: Introduce new functionality and capabilities
• Bug fixes: Resolve operational issues and system errors
• Firmware updates: Update hardware-level software components

Each type requires different patch prioritization strategies and deployment timelines based on risk assessment and business continuity requirements.

What are Patch Cadence and Management Best Practices?

For the most part, the best practice timeframe for installing security patches has remained consistent for nearly ten years. While the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-53 (Revision 5) provides overarching security controls, the dedicated guidance, NIST Special Publication 800-40 Revision 4, “Guide to Enterprise Patch Management Planning: Preventive Maintenance for Technology” offers detailed recommendations for enterprise patch management planning. Generally speaking, best practices suggest installing critical security patches within 30 days of their release, with 90 days as the outside edge of the timeline. 

However, since organizations often struggle to detect all services on their networks and security patches can cause downtime for critical systems, many companies need to formalize their processes and leverage patch management tools.

Identify All Systems, Networks, and Software

Similar to the risk assessment process, the first step in establishing a patch management process is identifying all endpoints that need monitoring. Organizations cannot secure themselves against risks they do not know about. Engaging in regular asset management and identification enables a more robust patching cadence and supports effective patch prioritization.

Asset management tools should maintain a real-time inventory of all software applications, operating systems, and hardware components to ensure comprehensive coverage in the patch management lifecycle.

Categorize by Risk

After identifying all digital assets, organizations need to create a list of the highest-risk locations and data. This categorization process helps IT departments prioritize patch management by giving them visibility into the assets that cybercriminals target most. Critical vulnerabilities should receive immediate attention, while lower-risk items can follow scheduled updates during regular maintenance windows.

Establish a Patch Management Policy

Just like a cybersecurity policy, the patch management policy acts as documentation proving that the organization has formalized processes for managing security patches. The policy should include information such as critical systems, monitoring guidelines, testing patches procedures, timing requirements, and compliance standards adherence.

Monitor for Newly Reported Vulnerabilities

Continuous monitoring remains a primary part of patch management, as it is of any cybersecurity effort. According to the website CVE Details, there were 40,301 new CVEs published in 2024 alone.

Leverage Automation

The overwhelming number of alerts and updates puts manual processes at risk of human error. No IT team can manage parsing out the constant barrage of threats to ensure continuous security and compliance. Automatic updates and vulnerability monitoring systems help prioritize these types of risks, ensuring more consistent updates and better risk management.

Organizations can choose from various patch management software techniques, including agent-based, agentless scanning, and passive network monitoring. While agent-based and agentless scanning may be the most comprehensive solutions, they also require host administrative privileges, increasing the attack surface. 

With privileged credentials increasingly a cybercriminal target, incorporating passive network monitoring into a holistic approach to patch management provides a reduced threat surface while supporting unmanaged hosts and appliances.

Test Patches

Before applying the security update, organizations should test patches by applying them to a sample of assets before releasing them across the production environment. This process, while time-consuming, ensures post-update functionality and helps identify potential compatibility issues before they impact critical systems.

Testing patches in isolated environments helps prevent business continuity disruptions while validating that software updates don’t introduce new vulnerabilities or operational problems.

Apply Patches

After determining the most important patches and testing them for effectiveness, the next step is to apply them and secure the assets. Patch installation should follow established change management procedures and include rollback plans for incident response scenarios.

Audit Processes and Report Metrics

The final step before moving onto the continued iteration cycle of patch management is to engage in an audit and report on key metrics. Key metrics for reporting a patch management strategy’s effectiveness include:

• How much of the IT ecosystem a patch secures
• How rapidly the organization applied the patches
• How much downtime occurred during the patch deployment process
• Whether the patching process met organizational industry-standard compliance standards and regulatory mandates
• Patch status tracking and reporting for audit purposes

Advanced Patch Management Strategies

With critical exploits often surfacing within hours of patch release, security teams need automated, risk-driven approaches that go beyond traditional update schedules.

Automated Patch Management Implementation

Modern automated patch management solutions can significantly reduce the burden on security teams while improving response times to critical vulnerabilities. These systems can automatically identify, test, and deploy software patches based on predefined risk criteria and schedule updates during approved maintenance windows.

Emergency Patches and Incident Response

When zero-day vulnerability exploits emerge, organizations need rapid incident response capabilities. Emergency patches require streamlined approval processes that bypass routine testing patches procedures while maintaining adequate change control documentation.

Navigating Organizational Dynamics

Effective patch management requires more than technical tools. It demands organizational alignment. Key insights for security teams:

• Define Clear Responsibilities: Testing typically falls to system owners rather than security teams. Security teams should focus on setting and monitoring compliance standards, while IT operations determine implementation methods.
• Leverage Existing Change Processes: Software updates should follow the same change management procedures as feature updates. Rather than creating separate processes, integrate patch management lifecycle requirements into existing workflows.
• Combat Patch Fear with Data: Organizations often let rare negative experiences dictate policy. However, experienced practitioners in cybersecurity forums frequently share a different reality: they report incredibly high success rates with patch deployments, with rollbacks being an extremely rare event, often citing only a handful over many years. This community insight should inform patch prioritization decisions rather than isolated incidents.

SecurityScorecard Enables Security Patch Management Best Practices

SecurityScorecard’s security ratings platform includes patching cadences as one of its ten risk factor groups. Our platform engages in passive network monitoring, giving organizations an outside-in look at their controls’ effectiveness.

We continuously monitor and alert organizations to new risks, including high-risk security patch updates, and provide at-a-glance visibility into customers’ security posture using an easy-to-read A-F rating scale. Our platform supports comprehensive vulnerability management program initiatives by tracking patch status across digital ecosystems.

As part of our patching cadence risk factor, we incorporate a review of operating systems, services, applications, software, and hardware for a holistic approach to external patching management. This enables organizations to maintain effective patch management practices while consistently meeting compliance standards.