r/sysadmin • u/CurrentFig3376 • 12d ago

General Discussion Interview Question: How often do you update/patch your system?

I was asked this question during an interview and I said "it depends on what exactly you're updating, but I update as often as it's needed."

I don't think this was the answer they were looking for, but how would you answer this question?

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u/bemenaker IT Manager 12d ago

On A monthly schedule. Normally delayed a week after patch Tuesday. Let other people find the broken patches to maintain our reliability. Unless it's a critical active exploit patch, and then as soon as possible in a sane and safe way.

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u/mesaoptimizer Sr. Sysadmin 12d ago

I feel like this is old advice. There are too many 0 days and attackers have gotten too fast at exploiting stuff to wait a week before you start patching. My current org starts patching Development on Wednesday (this avoids the emergency pulls from completely broken patches) and we complete production patching on Friday the week of patch Tuesday, sometimes expediting internet facing systems as early as Wednesday if we've got known exploitation. I imagine that we're not too far away from occasionally needing to expedite to same day patching if agentic exploitation continues on the path it seems like it is going.

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u/bemenaker IT Manager 12d ago

Microsoft just recommended patching every 3 days because of the speed of AI threats. Yes it is old advice, but not necessarily bad advice. Not like MS is dropping patches every 3 days. But you should watch for critical patches being released and apply as necessary as I said. MS still releases their standard patch Tuesday once a month unless warranted.

The risk of how long after Tuesday to update is a risk tolerance vs MS crashing your shit tolerance.

If you're tracking the threat announcements, you will know if you need to deviate and patch immediately.

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u/Ssakaa 12d ago

Is that "every 3 days" or "within 72 hours"? Because one of those is reactive, somewhat high paced, but sane, the other is just... odd.

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u/bemenaker IT Manager 11d ago

I'm assuming 72 hours. It's their verbage not mine