Lori Schafer in Forbes Tech Council: Smart Patching Strategies That Minimize Security Risk And Downtime

Find the original article in Forbes Technology Council here.

Keeping systems secure without jeopardizing reliability, productivity or customer trust is a high-stakes responsibility for IT teams. Reactive or ad hoc patching can unintentionally increase risk by creating blind spots or triggering avoidable disruption.

Smart patching that leverages analytics, automation and iteration reduces risk by making updates a regular part of operations instead of unpredictable, disruptive events. Below, Forbes Technology Council members share how their teams integrate patching in ways that strengthen security while protecting stability and business continuity.

1. Have Rotating ‘Patch Stewards’ Across Teams

I suggest rotating “patch stewards” across teams. Instead of leaving patching to a small core ops crew, rotate responsibility across engineering squads. Each steward curates patch runs for their rotation, then documents the lessons learned and hands them off. This builds organizational resilience, democratizes patch knowledge and makes patching an integrated, low-friction cultural habit. - Cristian Randieri, Intellisystem Technologies

2. Provide Base-Hardened Images

Pivot from patching to providing base-hardened images. This works with both OS images and containers. A hardened image could be a prepatched image or an image that has a reduced number of dependencies requiring updates. The patching process then migrates from patching individual software to refreshing your base image. This improves security and reduces overhead for ops teams. - Michael Fanning, Cisco

3. Integrate Automated Patch Orchestration With Existing Tools

Use automated patch orchestration that integrates with existing CI/CD tools. Prioritize based on risk, test patches in staging and roll out gradually with monitoring and rollback options. Pilot smart patching on noncritical systems before expanding. - Shiva Krishna Kodithyala, Bread Financial

4. Treat Patching Like A Release

The smoothest integrations I’ve seen start with treating patching like a release, not a fix. Run it through the same pipelines, testing and communication rhythms the team already trusts for product updates. This makes patching predictable instead of disruptive, and it shifts the mindset from emergency response to part of normal operations. - Ashish Srimal, Ratio

5. Make Disruptive Changes Configurable With Feature Flags

When implementing a disruptive change, start by making it configurable with the feature flag off, then enable it via toggle after validation. Maintain backward compatibility to avoid impacting existing processes. This phased, controlled approach ensures resilience, minimizes business disruption and preserves customer trust during transformation. - Meenakshi Panda, Capital One

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6. Take A Phased Pilot Approach

Adopt a phased pilot approach with incremental testing and automated rollback. Start small. Apply smart patches first on a controlled set of noncritical systems. Then, do incremental testing. Validate patch performance step by step (check connectivity, application stability and security compliance) before expanding to the next system group. - Gowtham Chilakapati, humana.com

7. Classify Assets And Vulnerabilities First

Instead of applying every available update immediately—which can overwhelm teams and risk outages—start by classifying assets and vulnerabilities by business impact and exploit likelihood. Tools such as CVSS scoring and threat-intelligence feeds can help you rank which patches truly need rapid deployment. - Pratik Badri

8. Build A Data-Driven Patching Culture

Build a data-driven culture around patching, not just a checklist. Use analytics to prioritize patches based on risk, exposure and business impact, then roll out updates in controlled phases. This approach helps teams integrate smart patching seamlessly into IT operations while maintaining stability and confidence. - Vivek Venkatesan, The Vanguard Group

9. Start With Canary Deployments In Noncritical Systems

Start with canary deployments on 5% to 10% of noncritical systems during maintenance windows. This allows you to test smart patching behavior and rollback capabilities before expanding to production environments. Run it in parallel with existing manual processes for two to three cycles to build confidence and surface edge cases without risking operational stability. - Harshith Vaddiparthy, JustPaid

10. Embed Patching Into DevSecOps Pipelines

A powerful step is embedding patching into DevSecOps pipelines so it becomes part of regular release cycles, not an extra task. By automating updates alongside code deployments, teams avoid downtime, ensure consistency and keep security invisible to end users, turning patching from disruption into continuous protection. - Rishi Kumar, MatchingFit

11. Treat Patching Like A Rolling Rehearsal

Treat smart patching like a rolling rehearsal, not a one-time event. Integrate it into change management with staged rollouts: Test patches in a controlled sandbox, push them to a pilot group, then expand gradually. This way, you surface compatibility issues early, maintain business continuity and build team trust that “fast” doesn’t mean “disruptive.” - Nidhi Jain, CloudEagle.ai

12. Test And Roll Out Patches During Low-Usage Hours

A smart tip is to always test patches in a safe test setup before applying them on live systems. This helps catch issues early and avoids surprises. Roll out updates during low-usage hours, and keep a backup plan ready. This keeps systems secure and smooth and ensures daily work continues without major disruption. - Jay Krishnan, NAIB IT Consultancy Solutions WLL

13. Map Patches To Business-Critical Workflows

Implement an automated/AI-driven risk-scoring mechanism that maps patches to business-critical workflows before deployment. Teams can better transform reactive maintenance patching into more predictive security operations by testing impacts in production-mirror environments. Next, roll out intelligent cohorts with automated rollback triggers so that security becomes more invisible, not disruptive. - Dan Sorensen

14. Set Up Automatic Rollback

Start with noncritical systems first, and set up automatic rollback. Patch a small group, watch for errors or performance issues for 24 to 48 hours, and automatically undo the patch if things go wrong. Once you confirm everything works normally, gradually expand to the rest of your systems. This reduces risk without slowing down your patching schedule. - Mofe Blessing-Kayode, PrepProof

15. Model The Patch In A Digital Twin

Treat intelligent patching like self-driving ops. Let AI model the blast radius of a patch in a digital twin, then release it through canary rings that auto-heal if anomalies spike. Instead of bolting security onto change management, you’re teaching the system to patch itself, invisibly, without slowing innovation or breaking uptime. - Akhilesh Sharma, A3Logics Inc.

16. Run Synthetic Canary Drills

One effective strategy is to enable synthetic canary drills. This involves intentionally injecting failures into small canary groups that have intelligent monitoring in place—such as performance checks, error rates and resource leak detection—when smart patching is applied. By directing only a small fraction of traffic to these canaries, you can significantly reduce the blast radius of any potential failures. - Jayashree Arunkumar, Wipro

17. Tie Patches To Existing Signals

Treat smart patching as an extension of observability. Tie patches to existing signals like tests, monitoring or alerts so they flow into normal workflows. Roll out progressively, validate in staging, then scale. Capture memory of past fixes to avoid repeat issues. This makes patching low-friction, reliable and nondisruptive. - Ishraq Khan, Kodezi

18. Run A Patching Cycle In ‘Report-Only’ Mode

Start with a “report-only” mode. Let the smart patching system run for a full cycle to identify and recommend patches without deploying them. This allows your team to validate its logic against manual processes, building trust in the automation. Once confident, shift to a phased rollout. Begin by auto-patching low-risk environments or a small canary group to contain any potential impact. - Anil Pantangi, Capgemini America Inc.

19. Pilot-Test Updates On A Subset Of Systems

Schedule patches during low-traffic windows, and pilot-test updates on a subset of systems first. This minimizes disruption and builds team confidence while keeping vulnerabilities tightly managed and operations running smoothly. - Lori Schafer, Digital Wave Technology

20. Combine Agentic AI With Human Intelligence

Agentic AI can be very helpful here, but only when applied with a human in the loop to ensure smart patching is integrated safely. AI can detect risks, prioritize fixes and simulate impact; experts can then validate and approve actions. This mix of AI and human intelligence balances speed with oversight, minimizing disruption while keeping systems working smoothly. - Yogesh Malik, Way2Direct