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6/24/2025 | 5 Minute Read
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Unpatched software promotes exploitable vulnerabilities. In fact, according to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, 22% of vulnerability exploits came from VPN and endpoint devices.
An effective patch management strategy ensures your organization’s infrastructure is always operating with the latest security, performance, and compliance features.
In this blog, we’ll explore ten patch management best practices that help organizations improve uptime, enhance protection, and maintain operational efficiency.
Patch management begins with understanding the scope of what you’re protecting. Take inventory of your IT environment, including all endpoints, operating systems, and applications. For MSPs, this means assessing each customer’s network separately. For IT departments, this includes workstations, servers, networks, storage and security devices, and all business-critical applications and third-party software.
A written patch management policy provides a proactive, structured framework that defines how an organization identifies, evaluates, tests, and deploys software patches across its IT systems. Its purpose is to reduce security risk, resolve known issues, and enable new features while maintaining operational stability.
A strong patch management policy should include:
Regular patch schedules help teams plan ahead and reduce disruption. Coordinate your schedule with vendor patch releases and plan deployments around off-peak hours or maintenance windows.
For MSPs, align patching with your customers’ operational needs. For IT teams, communicate clearly with department leaders and stakeholders.
Manual patching is time-consuming and prone to human error. Automated patch management software allows you to:
Automation is especially critical for MSPs managing multiple client environments and IT departments with limited staff and expansive infrastructure. Tools such as ConnectWise RMM™ help reduce workload while increasing visibility and control.
Download our RMM Buyer’s Guide for key questions to ask when evaluating your RMM options.
Before deploying patches in production, test them in a sandboxed environment that closely reflects real-world conditions. Testing reduces the risk of introducing bugs, compatibility issues, or performance degradation.
Patches that seem safe in theory can still conflict with custom configurations, legacy systems, or critical business apps.
Not every patch has equal importance. Use a risk-based approach to decide which patches to address first.
Prioritization criteria might include:
Delaying patch deployment increases your exposure to exploits, especially for known vulnerabilities. Develop SLAs for:
Timely patching also supports compliance with cybersecurity frameworks such as NIST, ISO 27001, and HIPAA.
Visibility is essential for ongoing improvement and regulatory compliance. Auditing your patch process helps you identify inefficiencies, demonstrate accountability, and drive continuous improvement across the organization.
Set up real-time monitoring and periodic audits to track:
Modern RMM solutions, such as ConnectWise RMM, enhance this process by providing automated alerts and detailed reports on unpatched devices, unsupported operating systems, and aging hardware. These insights allow IT teams and MSPs to proactively address vulnerabilities before they become security risks.
Make a backup plan for those times when patching doesn’t go as expected. Before applying patches, be sure to always take a backup of your systems. This allows for a rollback to a stable state if a patch causes unexpected issues.
For both MSPs and IT departments, this step minimizes downtime and preserves data integrity.
The patching process doesn’t end at deployment. Perform post-patch assessments to confirm success and identify areas for improvement.
Key metrics to track include:
This data helps refine future cycles and supports compliance reporting, audits, and SLA reviews.
Managing patches across diverse systems, vendors, and endpoints doesn’t have to be complex or time-consuming. ConnectWise RMM empowers both MSPs and IT departments to automate and streamline patch management at scale, while maintaining control, visibility, and security every step of the way.
With ConnectWise RMM, you can:
Whether you manage dozens of clients or a single complex enterprise network, our patch management software provides the flexibility and reliability you need to stay ahead of vulnerabilities and maintain business continuity.
Start a free 30-day trial and see how ConnectWise RMM can simplify patching, boost efficiency, and strengthen your IT security posture.