Over 500 Titles and Counting: Automox Automated Third-Party Patching Experiences Best-in-Industry

Not only are OS patches critical, but so are the vast number of third-party applications (apps) installed across your organization. But, how does your IT team keep all those third-party apps up to date? 

If caring for your third-party apps isn’t high on your priorities list, it’s probably because historically it’s been a pain in the a%$.  But third-party patching has gotten a whole lot easier with the help of Automox automation.

Let’s explore why third-party patching is crucial to your organization’s security and end user productivity – and how to do it right. 

Third-party patching: Why It’s Critical

A third-party app is any vendor-developed software that is running on an endpoint. From Acrobat and Chrome, to Camtasia or Zoom, third-party apps are vital to both IT and business. Third-party patches and updates:  

• Remove vulnerabilities otherwise exposed to bad actors

• Alleviate system drift

• Get rid of bugs identified in the software

• Add feature enhancements and other improvements to the third-party software

Historically, Third-party patching has traditionally been a pain

While we can probably all agree that  third-party patching is an important step in ITOps, managing third-party patches can get messy and is often a painstakingly slow manual process. 

It’s not inherently more difficult to patch third-party applications – but the individual effort to monitor, package, and deploy patches across numerous devices is just where the nightmare begins. And the challenges don’t stop there:

• Inconsistent notification and reporting cadence. Unlike Patch Tuesday, which releases patches the second Tuesday of the month, third-party vendors are not on a schedule and release patches as issues (and their corresponding resolutions) arise. Therefore, IT often must monitor and track these patches, manually, as they become available. 

• No two processes are alike. Just as each third-party vendor is unique, so are their processes, steps, and how each is packaged for deployment. Learning each process can be overwhelming and, in many cases, neither IT nor security wants to jump to take responsibility.

• Highly manual for IT. Manual management of every third-party app can be tedious and annoying when your IT teams have more pressing and urgent issues at hand. 

• Lack of staff cycles. Finally, many IT teams don’t have enough staff or cycles to dedicate to third-party patching entanglements. With over 27,000 new vulnerabilities discovered in 2023 alone, patching your endpoints can easily become a colossa effort for any team, regardless of size.

Putting third-party patching front-and-center [without the pain]

For all the press and industry attention on the importance of third-party patching, very few endpoint management solutions have met the third-party patching challenge head-on. Fewer still have elevated it to an organized, comprehensive, and automated process that respects IT’s time. 

At Automox, we understand third-party patching and what keeps you up at night. With a supported third-party software patching list growing at over 170% annually, we are here to turn the tables on the pains of third-party patching.

Get untangled from your third-party patching mess with Automox

IT teams are increasingly placing their trust in automation as a lever for reducing costs, removing human error, and patching faster to unlock better security outcomes. 

Automox helps relieve the fatigue and frustration of managing third-party titles with automation front-and-center. With a vast catalog of over 500 supported software applications, Automox customers can now manage, configure, and track all their third-party inventory – and natively patch it all from one place.

Visit Automox’s third-party support catalog and see for yourself!