Advisory calls for timely patches to avoid top cyber risks

Cybersecurity authorities in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and United Kingdom today advised organizations to apply timely patches and implement a centralized patch management system to reduce their risk of compromise from the most common cyber vulnerabilities exploited by malicious cyber actors in 2021 and 2020.

John Riggi, AHA’s national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, said, “According to this advisory from the ‘Five Eyes’ nations, hackers develop and deploy malware that exploits a known vulnerability within two weeks of its public release. This is often far quicker than patches are available and organizations can implement them — especially in hospitals, where patches must be thoroughly tested before being applied to ensure uninterrupted care delivery and patient safety. This advisory gives us clear direction on the most exploited vulnerabilities that should be prioritized for patching, if not already done so. It is also clear that hackers are often less interested in identifying an unknown or ‘zero-day’ vulnerability for exploitation than they are in simply beating us in a race to ‘exploit before we patch.’”