Patch Deployment Continues to Plague IT Security Efforts as Organizations Struggle with Complexity

Survey of 700+ IT Pros Indicates that Poor Automation Levels and the
Introduction of Virtual Machines Add to the Challenge
ST. PAUL, Minn.--(Business Wire)--
A survey of US and European IT and security specialists released by Shavlik
Technologies, LLC, the market leader in simplifying and automating critical IT
operations, suggests nearly half of companies continue to struggle with the
fundamentals of security best practices such as deploying patches across all
systems connected to their networks. In the survey of 715 respondents, the
majority, 63 percent, identified patch management as one of their top three most
critical-to-perform tasks. Despite this, when asked which areas presented the
greatest challenges for visibility and control, deployment of patches topped the
list with over 42 percent of US respondents (318) and nearly 50 percent of the
European respondents (397) citing this issue.

The April survey questioned RSA and Infosecurity Europe conference delegates
about their vulnerability management practices and concerns. Globally, the top
three tasks identified as critical to perform were patch management;
antivirus/antispyware; and configuration management. These rated higher than
policy and regulatory compliance auditing and virtual machine lifecycle
management. Decentralization of these critical tasks adds an avoidable layer of
complexity - most respondents would opt for consolidation of these tasks, if
possible -- but it was lack of automation that was identified as the most
substantial hurdle to overcome. Just over half of respondents identified that
the lack of automation presented an obstacle for IT departments in their efforts
to provide visibility and maintain control in these areas, with 37 percent
saying that such an effort was "too time consuming." This outweighed all other
options including traditional concerns such as cost and the quality of tools
available, both at about 26 percent.

"Organizations are struggling with too much complexity in their security
operations. Different tasks are allocated to different parts of the organization
while the lack of visibility covering the low-level basic controls prevents them
from being cost-effectively executed and monitored," says Mark Shavlik, CEO and
founder of Shavlik Technologies. "There is also recognition that with today`s
complex networks, particularly with the addition of virtual machines, visibility
and control are not possible without automation-at Shavlik Technologies, we have
an unwavering focus on technology and processes that simplify and automate
discovery and remediation, including flexible options for deployment and
management of our solutions, as we continue to solve the problems revealed in
this survey."

The survey suggests that the deployment of virtual machines is adding to the
complexity with about two-thirds, just under 69 percent, of respondents
identifying that their companies were deploying virtual machine technology, and
more than half concerned about managing the configuration of virtual machines.

About Shavlik Technologies

Shavlik Technologies, LLC is the market leader for simplifying and automating
critical-to-perform and manage IT operations including patch management,
antivirus + antispyware, configuration management, and policy and compliance
auditing. Shavlik`s innovative approach to simplifying and automating management
of the platform frees up IT staff for initiatives that grow your business
without sacrificing the visibility and control needed to ensure system uptime
and demonstrate proof of compliance with internal policies and external
regulations.

With more than 10,000 customers worldwide, Shavlik is trusted to provide
solutions that can be relied upon to identify gaps and automatically and
reliably fix systems that are missing patches or don't conform with the
corporate-defined configuration baseline. More information can be found at
www.shavlik.com.

Shavlik Technologies is a registered trademark in the United States and certain
other countries, of Shavlik Technologies. Additional Shavlik product names are
either registered trademarks or trademarks of Shavlik Technologies. All other
trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective
owners.

Madison Alexander PR
Dan Chmielewski, 714-832-8716
dchm@madisonalexanderpr.com
or
Shavlik Technologies, LLC
Jill Teut, 651-255-5432
jill.teut@shavlik.com

Copyright Business Wire 2009