In today’s threat landscape, reactivity is a liability. Attackers are using automation to exploit known vulnerabilities faster than most IT teams can respond. Yet even well-resourced organizations still rely on manual, reactive processes, leaving critical gaps in their defenses.
Adaptiva’s State of Patch Management 2025 report confirms what many of us already know: manual patching processes are not keeping pace with modern threats. If you’re seeing any of the following signs in your organization, your patch program is likely falling behind.
1. You Have a Growing Patch Backlog of Critical Vulnerabilities
One of the first red flags to be on the lookout for is a rising number of unpatched high or critical vulnerabilities. In our survey, 51% of respondents said patching has become a bigger issue than vulnerability detection. It’s not that organizations aren’t aware of the risks; they’re simply overwhelmed. For example, IT teams can accumulate hundreds of outstanding CVEs, making it difficult to prioritize or resolve them. The volume and velocity of vulnerabilities make backlog growth inevitable, unless automation is implemented.
2. Assets Are Missed – Especially Cloud, Remote, and Shadow IT
Today’s environments are distributed and dynamic. Unfortunately, many patching tools can’t keep up with modern environments. 64% of organizations in our report cited coordination between detection and remediation as their top challenge, and blind spots go unpatched due to lack of visibility.
Consider this scenario: A developer spins up a temporary cloud server to test a third-party application. Months later, the server remains active but unmonitored and unpatched. A critical vulnerability in that application is exploited by attackers, bypassing the main network defenses entirely. This type of situation is all too plausible, especially in fast-moving organizations without automated asset discovery and patch enforcement. If you can’t see it, you can’t secure it. Remember: autonomous patching solutions should continuously scan across your full IT landscape.
3. Patching Takes Too Long From Release to Rollout
77% of organizations take more than a week to deploy patches, which can be due to slow testing, manual approval bottlenecks, offline devices, and bandwidth constraints. When it comes to known exploits, attackers move quickly and can inflict severe damage within that first week window. Delayed remediation turns known threats into live exploits, but autonomous patching helps reduce that window drastically.
4. You’re Frequently Firefighting With Emergency Patches
If emergency patching is your norm, something’s broken. These reactive cycles burn out teams and divert resources. In our report, 98% of IT professionals said patching disrupts their work, often forcing them to abandon other critical initiatives. Projects such as improving threat detection workflows or enhancing endpoint security hygiene are often sidelined to address the latest emergency vulnerability.
Emergency patches also introduce risk because they are typically tested under tight deadlines or not tested at all, conflicting with existing systems or introducing instability. This reactive approach stems from a lack of automation, insufficient visibility into patch status, and weak coordination between vulnerability detection and remediation. When patching remains a largely manual effort, the organization stays in a state of triage, always one step behind threat actors.
5. You Lack Real-Time Reporting and Visibility
Without accurate, real-time visibility into patch deployment status, organizations are operating with a false sense of security. It’s not enough to know a patch was pushed – security teams need confirmation that it was successfully installed, verified, and closed the vulnerability it targeted.
About 55% of organizations say they cannot confidently report on patch compliance across all endpoints, and this lack of clarity introduces risk, not only from unpatched systems, but also from an inability to prioritize follow-up actions or communicate posture to executive leadership and regulators.
Real-time metrics, automated compliance tracking, and centralized dashboards are critical components of a modern patch management strategy. With autonomous patching platforms that provide end-to-end reporting, organizations can replace guesswork with confidence, knowing which systems are secure and where immediate action is still required.
The Takeaway? Automation Is No Longer Optional
Manual patching doesn’t scale, and our survey shows a clear shift, with 94% of organizations already automating or planning to automate patch distribution within the next year. In addition, Gartner Research forecasts that “by 2029, over 50% of organizations will adopt autonomous endpoint management (AEM) capabilities within advanced endpoint management and digital employee experience (DEX) tools to significantly reduce human effort.” As threats accelerate, your patch program needs to evolve just as quickly. Falling behind is not an option.
