AppSense Reveals Insights on Impact of Patch Tuesday: Proactive Prevention Only Way to Stop Daily IT Productivity Loss.

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- AppSense

What: On the first Tuesday of every month, Microsoft distributes patches to its productivity software packages. As a result, the day is commonly referred to as "Patch Tuesday."

AppSense's view:

Back in the mists of the past, people gave names to the days of the week. Some of these have survived in the names of our modern weekdays: Monday was Moon Day, Thursday is named after the Norse storm god Thor. The Roman god Saturn is remembered every Saturday.

"We think this is a great idea and should be revived," commented Martin Ingram, VP of Product Management, AppSense. "Microsoft must agree with this as they have already started with the first name: today is Patch Tuesday. Looking through the past year or so, we can see that Patch Tuesday has, unfortunately, inspired names for the other days of this week."

Patch Tuesday Weekday Names

Worrying Monday

The day before Patch Tuesday when all that an IT administrator has is a worrying snippet of information about the patches that are soon to be released. Will they have to scramble to close a vulnerability in their enterprise? They have to wait and see.

Patch Tuesday

The day of the week.

Virus Wednesday

With 24 hours past since the release of the patches and details of the vulnerabilities being fixed now out in the open, Malware writers have a field day. New exploits and Trojans pour onto the internet hoping to catch people before they can close any of the holes that weren't already being used to attack systems.

Vulnerability Thursday

Now that the excitement of Patch Tuesday is past, those nagging little vulnerabilities that researchers have been sitting on will be publicly disclosed, safe in the knowledge that there is a whole month for any exploitation to do damage before the next round of patches.

Rollback Friday

Administrators who patched their systems will now be discovering which patch is the dud this month. Maybe it was the patch documentation that wasn't quite complete or perhaps a bug in the patch itself. Either way, a patch to fix one vulnerability has stopped something unrelated from working, or worse still, it has opened a whole new vulnerability.

About AppSense:

AppSense is the leading provider of application-level endpoint security solutions for the enterprise - proactively protecting desktops, laptops, servers, virtual systems and embedded devices against all forms of malicious software and preserving endpoint environments in their optimal state to ensure system integrity. AppSense software secures thousands of organizations and is installed on hundreds of thousands of desktops and servers across the world in mid-to-large organizations and across many industries such as Public Sector, Finance, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare.

AppSense solutions automatically and proactively block all unknown or untrusted applications from running on an endpoint without ever having to know the source or nature of the application (i.e., whether it is an unauthorized software or malicious software) or if malicious, what its signature file looks like or how it behaves. It controls when/where approved applications can execute, what functions within those applications users can access, and can even control access to endpoint devices, like USB memory sticks, which can be used to compromise an enterprise's critical data.

AppSense operates through a world-wide channel of certified partners with offices in the US, UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Australia. For more information visit: www.appsense.com