Certified: The Security+ Prepcast

When a vulnerability is discovered, what you do next determines how much risk your organization will carry. Response and remediation are not just about applying patches—they are about managing priorities, understanding your exposure, and minimizing both technical and financial damage. In this episode, we begin our two-part look at vulnerability response and remediation by focusing on two key strategies: building a robust patch management program and using cyber insurance to transfer risk when necessary.
Let’s begin with patching. Patching is the process of updating software or firmware to fix bugs, improve performance, or—most critically—address security vulnerabilities. Even though patching may seem routine, failing to do it effectively is one of the most common and damaging mistakes in cybersecurity. Attackers often rely on known vulnerabilities that organizations have not yet patched, sometimes months or even years after a fix has been released.
So what does an effective patch management program look like? It starts with visibility. You must know what assets you have, what software they’re running, and which versions are installed. Without this baseline, you can’t track which systems are vulnerable or confirm whether a patch has been successfully applied. Accurate asset inventories are the foundation of every successful patch strategy.
The next step is information gathering. You need a reliable way to learn when patches are released and what vulnerabilities they address. This can include subscribing to vendor bulletins, monitoring the National Vulnerability Database, and using vulnerability scanning tools that flag outdated components. The faster you identify relevant patches, the faster you can respond.
Then comes prioritization. Not every patch needs to be applied the moment it is released. Focus first on high-severity vulnerabilities—especially those that are actively being exploited or that affect systems exposed to the public internet. Prioritize based on risk, impact, and exposure. This is where a well-maintained risk matrix can help you decide what gets patched immediately, what can wait, and what needs to be tested more thoroughly.
Speaking of testing—never skip it. Even security patches can break functionality or introduce instability. Before pushing a patch across your entire environment, test it in a controlled setting. Check for compatibility issues, unexpected side effects, and disruptions to essential workflows. A bad patch can be almost as damaging as the vulnerability it was meant to fix.
Once tested, patches should be deployed using tools that support automation and reporting. Patch management platforms can push updates across the network, verify installations, and generate logs for compliance and auditing. Automation reduces manual errors, saves time, and helps ensure consistency across systems.
Now let’s look at some real-world consequences. A well-known example of delayed patching occurred during the Equifax breach in twenty seventeen. Attackers exploited a vulnerability in a web application component that had a patch available—but the patch had not been applied. The breach exposed the personal data of over one hundred forty million people and led to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. A simple patch, applied on time, could have prevented the entire incident.
Contrast that with another organization that detected a critical remote code execution vulnerability in its externally facing application. Because they had a tested patch deployment pipeline, they were able to apply the fix within twenty-four hours of the patch being released. The system stayed secure, the service remained stable, and the incident response team was never activated. That is the power of a well-executed patch management program.
But what happens when patching is delayed for reasons outside your control? What if a system is too critical to risk downtime, or a vendor has not yet released a fix? That’s where our second topic comes into play—cyber insurance and risk transfer.
Cyber insurance is a financial tool designed to reduce the monetary impact of cybersecurity incidents. While it cannot prevent a breach, it can help organizations recover by covering expenses related to response, legal actions, regulatory fines, and business interruption. Cyber insurance is often used as part of a broader risk management strategy to deal with vulnerabilities that cannot be immediately remediated.
A good cyber insurance policy typically covers several categories. These include incident response costs, forensic investigations, breach notification, credit monitoring for affected customers, and even ransomware payments in some cases. Some policies also include coverage for public relations efforts to restore brand reputation.
To qualify for these benefits, organizations usually need to demonstrate that they follow reasonable security practices. That means keeping systems up to date, maintaining logs, limiting access to sensitive data, and responding quickly to known threats. A history of poor patching, weak controls, or ignored alerts can result in denied claims or increased premiums.
Let’s consider an example. A logistics company suffers a ransomware attack that encrypts its scheduling system and halts deliveries for three days. Because the attack exploited a known vulnerability that had been disclosed but not patched, the company turns to its cyber insurance provider. The policy covers much of the cost of recovery, including legal assistance, third-party investigations, and temporary business losses. But because the insurer determines that the patch could have been applied weeks earlier, the company’s future premiums increase—and its coverage is reduced unless it can prove improvements in its vulnerability management process.
In another case, a healthcare provider experiences a breach involving outdated software from a third-party vendor. The vulnerability is real, but patching is delayed while the vendor develops a fix. In the meantime, attackers gain access to protected health information. Thanks to their cyber insurance, the organization receives funds to support breach notification, compliance reporting, and public communication. Although the event still causes disruption, the financial shock is softened. Insurance helps the organization recover while it works to improve internal and vendor-related patching practices.
Cyber insurance should not be seen as a replacement for good security—it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s a safety net, meant to catch you when technical defenses fall short. And like any safety net, it works best when you are already practicing balance and caution. That means patching when possible, segmenting critical systems, logging suspicious behavior, and educating your teams on secure practices.
To summarize, responding to vulnerabilities effectively means having both a proactive and a protective strategy. Proactive patching—built on inventory, awareness, testing, prioritization, and automation—helps you close known gaps before attackers can exploit them. When patching is delayed or impossible, cyber insurance provides a way to manage the financial fallout of a breach. Together, these approaches reduce both technical and business risk and support long-term resilience.
For the Security Plus exam, be ready to explain the components of a patch management program and recognize the risks of delayed remediation. Understand what cyber insurance covers and how it fits into an overall risk management strategy. You may see scenario questions where you have to decide between patching, isolating, or transferring risk—and choose the best course of action based on given conditions.