IT asset patch gaps and fragmented endpoint management expose security risks

A Splashtop survey of 250 IT and managed‑service professionals found that teams spend about 53 % of their time on routine endpoint maintenance and average 12.6 hours per week reacting to unplanned issues. Teams often juggle multiple tools for inventory, patching, troubleshooting and remote access, which creates fragmented workflows and delayed visibility, keeping endpoint management largely reactive despite ongoing modernization efforts.

Research by Arctic Wolf analysing over 800,000 IT assets revealed that 18 % of assets are not covered by patch or configuration management, 19 % run on end‑of‑life hardware or software, and 17 % fall outside traditional vulnerability‑scanning solutions. One in ten assets lack endpoint security entirely. Moreover, 65 % of non‑BEC incident‑response cases stem from misuse of remote‑access services, even though patches were already available for the ten most exploited CVEs. These findings highlight persistent blind spots and the need for more integrated, automated security controls.

Both studies underscore that incomplete patch coverage and fragmented endpoint processes leave organizations vulnerable to exploitation through remote‑access avenues and unaddressed vulnerabilities.