Unpatched vulnerabilities responsible for a third of data breaches

Marwin Marcussen, sales engineer manager EMEA at Kaseya, spoke about software and patch management at Computing's Deskflix: SMEs event.

Speaking to an audience of SME IT leaders, Marcussen warned that cyberattacks continue to rise, "in case you hadn't been paying attention to the news over the last couple of years." He started in the security sector 20 years ago and has never seen the number of attacks fall.

"Back in the day [security] was already an issue, and nothing has changed if you look at all the reports that are passing by on a monthly, weekly, maybe even daily basis."

Attacks are not only rising, but becoming more sophisticated every year. Covid exacerbated this, the hacking community shifting their focus to attacks playing on fears of the virus and targeting those newly working from home.

"We all need to consider the increasing sophistication of attacks because it's no longer a matter of if a company's going to be targeted, it's a matter of when."

What does this have to do with patch management? Despite the rising sophistication of attacks, unpatched vulnerabilities are still the cause of one in three data breaches globally, according to Microsoft, so ensuring your software is up to date is a key issue all IT leaders need to be aware of.

Marcussen used his session at Deskflix to delve into the economics of cybercrime and the importance of taking a layered approach to security. Catch it all in the video below.