Wilmington College

IT Security Patch Management Policy

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to enforce patch requirements for Wilmington College (college) owned or managed IT Resources.

Scope

This IT policy, and all policies referenced herein, shall apply to all members of the College community including faculty, students, administrative officials, staff, alumni, authorized guests, delegates, and independent contractors (the “User(s)” or “you”) who use, access, or otherwise employ, locally or remotely, the College’s IT Resources, whether individually controlled, shared, stand- alone, or networked.

Policy Statement

• All IT Resources must be part of a patch management cycle.
• Owners and managers are responsible for the assessment of IT Resources under their management or supervision.
• All patches or configuration changes must be deployed toC ollege- owned or managed IT Resources when a vulnerability is determined.

Definitions

IT Resources include computing, networking, communications, application, and telecommunications systems, infrastructure, hardware, software, data, databases, personnel, procedures, physical facilities, cloud-based vendors, Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors, and any related materials and services.

A Patch is a software update comprised code inserted (i.e., patched) into the code of an executable program. Typically, a patch is installed into an existing software program. Patches are often temporary fixes between full releases of a software package. Patches include, but are not limited to the following:

• Updating software
• Fixing a software bug
• Installing new drivers
• Addressing new security vulnerabilities
• Addressing software stability issues

Patch management cycle is a part of lifecycle management and is the process of using a strategy and plan of what patches should be applied to which systems at a specified time. Patch management occurs regularly as per the Patch Management Procedure.