In the today’s IT environments, security vulnerabilities in industry standard software components have far reaching impact on enterprises. IT Operations must be always ready to respond to unanticipated changes. The recently identified vulnerability in bash - Shellshock - is a case in point.
Addressing this critical vulnerability requires IT Operations teams to patch hundreds if not thousands of servers at a day’s notice. To accomplish this, IT Operations must be able to:
- Easily identify vulnerable servers,
- Identify critical applications that are impacted,
- Plan and apply appropriate change controls, and
- Automate patch deployment across identified infrastructure.
OpsRamp faced this very challenge in the wake of Shellshock. We needed to patch all the infrastructure in our cloud on which OpsRamp runs. We used OpsRamp to identify vulnerable servers and automatically roll-out a patch within a few hours after Shellshock was first identified. We secured our cloud and proactively notified customers even before they heard about Shellshock.
Incidents like Shellshock and HeartBleed highlight some key insights for IT Operations:
- Agility of response has become a critical competency. Unpredictable changes are the norm in an interconnected world. The speed with which IT Operations can respond to changes has a significant impact on business outcomes.
- Securing the management tool is easier with SaaS. In contrast to traditional on-premise management tools, a SaaS based management tool like OpsRamp is completely managed by the solution provider. Customers can rest assured that their SaaS provider is keeping their tool secure.
- SaaS based tools enable best practices to be easily shared and applied. Using the same capabilities and approach that we used, customers are able to patch and secure their own environments.
OpsRamp enables IT teams to improve detection and apply standard processes and best practices across all enterprise systems. To learn more about OpsRamp and how it can help you respond to vulnerabilities like Shellshock, reach out for a personalized demo.
