Software Updates

Every year Software Vendors release hundreds of patches, security updates, and hot fixes. Keeping track of these items can be a real headache, especially if you do not have a game plan ready to execute. While forcing Software Vendors to improve their software to the point where it never needs patching is beyond our power, making sure your server is up to date and secure is not.

Why you need to stay updated.
Why worry about your server when it appears to be running just fine?

Software Vendors release many patches, service packs, security updates, hot fixes, and updates each year to improve software performance, enhance security, or patch up a well known exploit. Security patches are often created after hackers have identified the security hole and made it public, making your server vulnerable. Prior to the patch, your server may have security holes you may not even know about. Other patches and fixes have to do with the overall performance of your server such as patching a memory leak, improving software performance, or adding additional functionality to your server.

For example in 2003, 3784 vulnerabilities where reported for the year. On average, that is about 72 new security issues to deal with on a daily basis. To stay informed requires a vigilant and time consuming process of receiving bulletins, software inventory, and the overall process of applying patches. FastServers.Net provides every client with the update service free of charge to make sure you are able to have any up to date server that is both stable and secure. Utilizing the DEFCON services provided our team of Dedicated Experts handle the overall software updates for you either by request (DEFCON 4 Service) or automatically (DEFCON 3, DEFCON 2, DEFCON 1). Staying secure is a requirement of operating a server and at FastServers.Net we provide you the outlet to make this happen.

Vulnerabilities reported by www.cert.org

Total vulnerabilities reported (1995-2Q 2004): 14,686
*2004 includes stats from the 1st and 2nd Quarter of the Year.

With a rash of recent security updates, patches, and critical hot fixes released by Microsoft over the years, the senior administrators at FastServers.Net took a hard look at the patch management strategy for Windows 2000/2003 servers, along with other Microsoft enterprise-level applications. As productive as our maintenance periods had been in the past we knew that we were still lacking the automation of releasing these updates from Microsoft in a timely, effective manner to our customers to secure their dedicated hosting solutions.

FastServers.Net is pleased to announce that we have partnered with St. Bernard Software to improve, secure our patch management solution going forward for our customers. St. Bernard's UpdateEXPERT will be the flagship for all patch management for Windows 2000/2003 and all backend Microsoft applications beginning March 2006 for all of the FastServers.Net datacenter environments. UpdateEXPERT has received countless accolades and awards for its patch management solution that greatly speeds and simplifies the patching of systems no matter how small or large an enterprise operation can be. UpdateEXPERT automates the time-consuming tasks involved in accurately scanning and patching operating systems and applications.

What does this mean for our customers? Overall this will mean a more trusted, effective way of securing your servers, ensuring updates are applied in a timely fashion, while knowing that the updates that are applied to your servers have been tested, verified and approved before installation- providing additional peace of mind in that the patches that are deployed will not hamper productivity or cause any conflicts with existing environments. This service is only available to DEFCON 1 through 3 customers; DEFCON 4 and 5 customers, please speak with your sales representative for special pricing to add FastServers.Net UpdateEXPERT service to your solution or upgrade to a new DEFCON support package to not only receive UpdateEXPERT, but all the additional quality benefits of our DEFCON services.

Simplified and Speedy Patch Management
UpdateEXPERT is critical for ensuring dedicated server protection against debilitating threats, costly data loss and legal liabilities associated with regulatory compliance. Most malware leverages known vulnerabilities that have simply been left un-patched. With several major software vulnerabilities discovered each week it is imperative to keep dedicated servers updated. Combine this with the increasing speed at which exploits follow vulnerability announcements and you have a crisis in the making.

UpdateEXPERT Simplifies and Speeds Patching
UpdateEXPERT Premium simplifies and speeds the patching process across your network. The complex and time consuming tasks involved in accurately and reliably patching are automated so you can handle multiple patches across multiple distributed systems quickly and easily.