In November 2020, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) reaches end of maintenance support. HCL is announcing two new offerings that provide continuous content delivery for Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL). The BigFix Extended Patch for RHEL offerings eliminates the need for customers to manually discover, curate, test and package ESU content - saving staff time while drastically reducing your window of vulnerability.

Overview The US Federal Government levied a substantial fine on a leading US Bank because they were not satisfied with the Bank’s patch process and reporting. The Bank uses several, disparate, patching tools including Microsoft SCCM and Tanium; regulators insisted the Bank have a unified reporting solution to confirm operating systems and business applications were fully patched and compliant. As a result, BigFix was successfully implemented to: Identify available patches Identify endpoints that are noncompliant and in need of patching. Additionally, the Bank contracted with HCL to monitor over 150 third-party applications and to build BigFix Fixlets™ as patches or updates are released for those applications. This issue illustrates an area that is consistently overlooked and not discussed:  validation. What does validation mean? One definition is “the action of checking or proving the validity or accuracy of something.” In terms of systems management, validation is the act of verifying that actions were taken and performed as expected. As is evident with the increasing frequency of data breach announcements, timely and accurate patch management grows ever more critical.  However, there needs to be an equally critical discussion about the importance of patch validation. Do you know how your current patch solution validates that a patch was properly installed? Does it check an exit code from the Windows Update Agent, or does it just scan the registry to see if the patch Knowledge Base (KB) number is listed? What happens if the patch KB is listed as installed; but not properly deployed and installed? When this happens, a false sense of security results and security risk increases dramatically. BigFix Patch Deployment BigFix Patch does not rely on other tools to validate that patches are properly installed.  In fact, BigFix Patch does not rely on any other software to deploy patches. Let’s walk...

Overview  It’s the end of an era: the mighty Windows 7, initially released a decade ago, has reached its end of life.  After January 14, 2020, PCs and servers running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 will no longer receive security updates, unless you have purchased an Extended Security Update (ESU) from Microsoft. Organizations need to immediately assess the security impact on their endpoint fleet.    HCL is excited to announce two offerings which provide patching continuity for BigFix users who have decided to extend the life of their Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 endpoints by purchasing the associated Microsoft Extended Support Update.  BigFix Delivers Fixlets for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008  One of BigFix’s key differentiators is its curated content, including patch content.  BigFix is offering to continue to deliver Fixlets for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 to clients who have purchased the associated Extended Security Update from Microsoft.  This eliminates the need to develop and test Fixlets, saving significant time and cost, while speeding the patching of associated vulnerabilities. The following product offerings are now available to BigFix users:  BigFix Extended Patch for Windows 7  BigFix Extended Patch for Windows Server 2008  By purchasing these offerings, BigFix users will receive fixes through the BigFix Content Delivery Service as they do now, requiring no change to operational processes or procedures. The initial targeted delivery is the February 2020 Microsoft ESU patch cycle.  Prerequisites:    These product offerings require the following BigFix and Microsoft products:  Microsoft Extended Security Update (ESU) for Windows 7 and/or Windows Server 2008  BigFix Patch, BigFix Compliance, or BigFix Lifecycle  Migrating From Windows 7 and Server 2008  Extending the life of Windows 7 and Server 2008 is only a short-term solution.  Organizations should seek to migrate to Windows 10 and Server 2019.  As always, BigFix has your back.  For more information on using BigFix to ease OS transition, take a look at Are you ready for Windows 7 End of Support? For more information:   Visit www.BigFix.com or contact your BigFix Sales Specialist or business partner.