One of the most common ways that hackers target organizations is by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated software. Outdated software risks can leave you open to a variety of hacks, including ransomware, malware, data breaches, and more. The fact is, failing to update your software doesn’t just mean you’re missing out on the latest version—it means you could expose your organization to major security vulnerabilities, like the widespread Apache Log4j2 vulnerability.

Windows 10, which is still the most widely deployed operating system on desktops, has announced end of support for October 14, 2025. The current version, 22H2, will be the last version of Windows 10, which means that Microsoft will stop providing support and security updates for that particular version and any vulnerabilities discovered after the EOL (End of Life) date will not be fixed by Microsoft, leaving your operating system, and that of your customers, exposed to security risks.

Software vulnerability patching plays a critical role in safeguarding your code base, software, applications, computer systems, and networks against potential threats, and ensuring they’re compliant, and optimized for efficiency. Organizations’ codebases have become increasingly complex, involving sophisticated relationships between components and their dependencies.

Twenty-five percent: Any idea what this percentage is referring to? Let’s take some wild guesses: A five-year CAGR of your investments? Your yearly salary hike? If any of your guesses were remotely close to these happy responses, we’re sorry to break your heart! This percentage depicts the rise in the number of identified vulnerabilities in 2022 over the previous year. 2022 saw an alarming spike of 25% in identified vulnerabilities, the count rising to 25,227 from 20,171 previously.

Patch management is the centralized control and automation of the patch deployment process — deploying patches — to multiple devices, operating systems, firmware, software and hardware endpoints in the IT network. But vulnerabilities are increasing at unseen rates. Over 65,000 new vulnerabilities in existing IT systems were discovered in 2022, which is a 21% increase from 2021. And that makes patch management all the more important.

Something as common and widely known as a software update can prevent major cyberattacks from happening, as they incorporate patches that fix system vulnerabilities. Prioritizing updates may seem a burdensome and inconvenient task for users, because computers and servers have to restart to perform installation, which interrupts users when they are working.