[Project Description] Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise (Draft)

Souppaya, Murugiah; Stine, Kevin; Simos, Mark; Sweeney, Sean; Scarfone, Karen

White Paper (Draft)

Obsoleted on March 30, 2020 by [Project Description] Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise.

[Project Description] Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise

Date Published: August 31, 2018
Comments Due: October 1, 2018 (public comment period is CLOSED)
Email Questions to: cyberhygiene@nist.gov

Author(s)

Murugiah Souppaya (NIST), Kevin Stine (NIST), Mark Simos (Microsoft), Sean Sweeney (Microsoft), Karen Scarfone (Scarfone Cybersecurity)

Announcement

The Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise project will examine how commercial and open source tools can be used to aid with the most challenging aspects of patching general IT systems, including system characterization and prioritization, patch testing, and patch implementation tracking and verification. These tools will be accompanied by actionable, prescriptive guidance on establishing policies and processes for the entire patching life cycle.

Ultimately, this project will result in a NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide, a publicly available description of the practical steps needed to implement a cybersecurity reference design that addresses this challenge.

Abstract

Cyber hygiene describes recommended mitigations for the small number of root causes responsible for many cybersecurity incidents. Implementing a few simple practices can address these common root causes. Patching is a particularly important component of cyber hygiene, but existing tools and processes are frequently insufficient to rapidly mitigate this risk in many environments and situations. The objective of this project is to demonstrate a proposed approach for improving enterprise patching practices for general IT systems. Commercial and open source tools will be used to aid with the most challenging aspects of patching, including system characterization and prioritization, patch testing, and patch implementation tracking and verification. These tools will be accompanied by actionable, prescriptive guidance on establishing policies and processes for the entire patching life cycle, in the form of a freely available NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide.

Keywords

cyber hygiene; incidents; patching; security hygiene; software updates; vulnerabilities

Control Families

None selected

Documentation

Publication:
Project Description

Supplemental Material:
Project homepage (other)

Document History:
08/31/18: White Paper (Draft)
03/30/20: White Paper (Final)

Topics

Security and Privacy
patch management; vulnerability management

Technologies
software & firmware

Sectors
energy