Partners Say Alleged CIA Hacking Papers Prompt ‘Constant Vigilance’ In Mobile Security
In its news release on the so-called “Vault 7” documents, WikiLeaks describes a specialty CIA unit that develops malware to “infest, control and exfiltrate data” from iPhones as well as from iPads. WikiLeaks describes a “similar unit” for Android devices. The documents stem from 2013-2016.
Kevin McDonald, executive vice president and chief information security officer at Alvaka Networks, an Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider, said “layering as many security options over the top as you can” is the only reasonable response. And he agreed that vigilance is the key for security professionals.
The case “tells me and anyone who is paying attention, that if you think you’re secure, you’ve got a lesson coming to you,” McDonald said.
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.