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: Some background

A third-party app is any vendor-developed software that is running on an endpoint. From Adobe Acrobat, Chrome, and Camtasia, to Zoom, third-party apps are vital to users when accomplishing their duties and to their organization when getting business done. Patches and updates:  

• Remove vulnerabilities otherwise exposed to bad actors

• Alleviate system drift

• Get rid of new bugs identified in the software

Third-party patching has traditionally been a pain, though 

While we can probably all agree that  third-party patching is an important step in IT and cyber security strategies, 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). 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. 74% of IT pros say they can’t patch fast enough. While third-party management is a necessary effort, often it’s a hot potato task no one wants to own. 

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. But since our entire mission is about making IT teams' lives easier, we've decided to double down on building an expansive third-party catalog with over 210 titles and counting.

NOTE: The list currently shows only apps for macOS and Windows.

Get untangled from your third-party patching mess

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. Fixing missing third-party patches with often only a click of a button dramatically reduces the time, effort, and complexity it takes to maintain a strong security posture.

VPN-free and globally available, Automox gives you complete visibility into all the software installed in your environment and then allows you to patch it all from one place. Leveraging our catalog of supported third-party apps, plus automation, makes it pretty darn easy to tackle your third-party patching. 

Browse the Automox third-party catalog

With one of the most extensive third-party catalogs in the industry, we have a whole team dedicated to continuously adding new vendors by: 

• Understanding the latest industry trends and identifying third-party vendors gaining adoption

• Responding to requests from third-party vendors asking to be added to the Automox-supported catalog

• Listening when customers mention top third-party apps that matter