October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Today marks the first day of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. I am pleased to see one of the themes for this year’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, is about doing security updates. Only by patching your software in a timely manner, [...]
Notice of Emergency Windows/Internet Explorer Security Patch
Overview of Windows/Internet Explorer Security Patch Microsoft has advised Windows/Internet Explorer users to install an “emergency” out-of-band security patch (i.e. not released on patch-Tuesday) for a recently detected Zero-Day-Exploit (i.e an exploit that has already been actively used prior [...]
Who’s to Blame for IOT Cybersecurity Challenges?
Originally published on TechTarget Security. Alvaka’s COO and CISO—Kevin McDonald—talks about IOT cybersecurity challenges and the debate of accountability for the poor manufacturing, implementation and management. IoT technologies offer a plethora of benefits and opportunities that are just beginning to [...]
Are One in Three Breaches Really Caused by Unpatched Vulnerabilities?
Oli Thordarson, CEO of Alvaka Networks, begs to differ... This is an interesting article I read in ZDnet, Cybersecurity: One in three breaches are caused by unpatched vulnerabilities, about software vulnerability patching. I found it interesting because I took [...]
Who’s to Blame for Ransomware Attacks?
Originally published on TechTarget. Alvaka’s COO and CISO—Kevin McDonald—discusses that, although cyber attackers are the main culprits for ransomware attacks, the companies that release flawed software or those who don’t install patches are not off the hook. In early May, [...]
How Intelligence Data Leaks Has Damaged Infosec
Originally published on June 19, 2017 on TechTarget. Alvaka’s COO and CISO, Kevin McDonald, examines the real-world damage caused by CIA and NSA data leaks, putting dangerous government cyberweapons in the hands of hackers. WikiLeaks' CIA data dump shook a [...]
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.
