Page 51 - Cyber Defense eMagazine April 2021 Edition

P. 51

The graph below shows data collected from our global platform over four months, Novem-
ber 2020 to February 2021. It clearly shows the adoption of Chrome updates after they are re-
leased. For context, the release dates of the Chrome versions in the chart below are: Chrome 88 on
19 January 2021; Chrome 87 on 17 November 2020; and Chrome 86 on 6 October 2020.

We can see that while Chrome 87 was released on 17 November, it took at least a month for
customers to start updating their browsers. It was only in December that we saw Chrome 87
adoption rates of around 84%. We then saw a similar trend going into January of this year. Chrome 88 was
released on 19 January 2021, and there was a significant increase in Chrome updates, with 68% of custom-
ers updating it by February. This quicker adoption could be attributed to the recent
SolarWinds breach, with customers being more vigilant with updates.

According to our Threat Labs research, we also noticed that there were some early adopters of browser up-
dates and those who were more consistent in their patching cycle. The same set of
customers who were early adopters of Chrome 87, also updated more quickly to Chrome 88.

These early adopters included organisations in Finance & Banking,Government, Construction and Oil & Gas,
while North America and
Singapore had the most customers updating as soon as the patch was released.
With the market dominance of Chrome, organisations must rethink their patch management
policies in order to stay ahead of browser attacks. The need to patch as soon as possible is critically import-
ant. But for businesses unable to install patches immediately, a patch buffer can help mitigate attacks by
providing them with the time they need to implement patches across multiple devices and keep users safe.

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