Unpatched systems are one of the primary cybersecurity vulnerabilities for businesses, but patch management is also commonly overlooked as an unnecessary priority. If you have a business network, you could be vulnerable to exploits that take advantage of your unpatched systems. You don’t need to be a victim of the latest malware running rampant online, so we’ll explain the importance of keeping your systems up to date and what could happen if you don’t. What is Patch Management? Patch management is a plan of action that ensures hardware and software on your environment has the latest updates, specifically security patches. Patches cover basic updates and bug fixes, but security patches are considered critical changes to avoid having open known vulnerabilities on your systems.  It doesn’t matter if your network is made up of one workstation or thousands, you need a patch management plan to ensure that updates are installed. For example, suppose that you have 10 workstations running Windows on them. You need to ensure that the latest Windows operating system patches are applied to each workstation, or you could have open vulnerabilities. Examples of Unpatched Systems Being Breached Several worldwide exploits and malware spread across the internet before security patches. A good example is the WannaCry ransomware spread in 2017. WannaCry used an exploit called EnternalBlue, a vulnerability specific to the Windows operating system. The vulnerability was so severe that Microsoft deployed a patch to unsupported legacy operating systems like Windows XP.  Not everyone patched their systems, so the US government put together presentations to explain why it’s important to patch systems with the latest security patches. Newer versions of Windows are already patched for WannaCry, but older vulnerable Windows XP computers are still in the wild. Ransomware like WannaCry can destroy your business data, and serious attacks can cost thousands of dollars in extortion fees. Attackers routinely scan systems for vulnerabilities. Internet-facing public servers are primary targets. In 2025, attackers targeted unpatched on-premise Microsoft SharePoint servers. The vulnerability, known as ToolShell, allowed attackers to execute remote code on unpatched SharePoint servers. How Patch Management Works In a business environment, you can’t simply install every patch and call it a day. You need a plan, a staging environment for critical infrastructure, monitoring, and documentation. Here are the steps you should follow for patch management and deployment: How Unpatched Systems Get Breached Even a midsize business has several dozen moving parts, so it can be difficult to keep track of what needs to be updated, what can go wrong, and priority for patching. Some systems aren’t as critical as others, so they don’t need patching immediately. Other systems don’t have public access, so they too can wait for patching. Here is a comparison table of common business infrastructure that should be on your patch management plan: Common Exploits Priority and Cadence Example Breaches Web apps Remote code execution, DoS, or common web exploits like SQLi or code injection Critical, within 72 hours of patch availability Equifax data breach in 2017 Operating systems Privilege escalation, remote code execution, ransomware High, within 72 hours for public-facing servers, or 1 month for internal servers WannaCry ransomware in 2017 Firewalls and VPNs Unauthorized network access, credential theft, malware injection Critical, patch as soon as possible Fortinet and Citrix breaches Third-party libraries Supply-chain exploits High, patch as soon as possible after testing Log4Shell in 2021 IoT firmware Default credential usage Medium, make sure default credential passwords are changed Mirai botnet, still ongoing Browsers and plugins Drive-by downloads and malware High, browsers have auto-update features Common malware and clickjacking Databases Unauthorized access and data exfiltration High, patch during maintenance downtime SQLi and common data exfiltration breaches When an exploit is found, it’s given a risk factor. Anything labeled “Critical” should be patched immediately. Developers and firmware manufacturers usually have options to auto-update, but most businesses prefer to install on a staging server first. Patch management for the latest exploits can often be a full-time job, especially if you have a large environment with remote workers. How Corporate Technologies Can Help Unless you have someone dedicated to keeping up with the latest exploits and software patches, you will probably miss when developers release updates. This is where Corporate Technologies can help. Running some infrastructure in the cloud helps alleviate some of this overhead, because firmware updates and backend infrastructure are handled by the cloud provider. For internal infrastructure, you need to constantly keep up with the latest releases for both hardware and software. Workstations need updates, remote devices should be updated, and server updates are also necessary. Corporate Technologies can take on this overhead to reduce the amount of time local IT people need to focus on patch management.  Getting behind on updates can be the vulnerability attackers need to steal your data. Contact Corporate Technologies to see how we can help you with your patch management strategy.  FAQs Q: What is patch management? A: Patch management is a strategy for updating hardware and software with the latest updates including security patches and bug fixes. Q: How often should you patch software? A: Developers release updates periodically, so there is no specific timeframe for patching. When a patch is released, the priority for patching depends on the risk factor of the vulnerability. Critical vulnerabilities should be patched immediately, high should be patched in a few days, and low-priority patches can wait for your next maintenance schedule. Q: Have there ever been real-world consequences for unpatched systems? A: Yes, the 2017 Equifax data breach was from an unpatched system, and 2025 exploits of Microsoft SharePoint servers were from unpatched servers. Q: What’s the first step in patch management? A: You first need to audit your environment to identify every item that might need patches, including hardware like firewalls and VPNs. Q: How can I patch software on a user’s computer? A: Some software allows for automatic updates. Otherwise, you can deploy patches using login scripts or third-party software installed on all user computers.

Claude Mythos has just been released, which is an Anthropic LLM model that will change AI in cybersecurity. What this means for you is that the public internet no longer needs to have hacking experience to breach your business environment. This doesn’t mean that you are helpless to threats, but you should take steps to secure your applications and data. You might feel risk-proof with your current security infrastructure, but AI lets attackers find vulnerabilities much more efficiently than before. How Advancements in AI Change the Cybersecurity Landscape Hackers already use AI to find vulnerabilities in popular software, but new AI models like Claude Mythos have made discovery of threats more attainable to everyday people. More obscure vulnerabilities required better hacking skills, but that’s not a requirement anymore. With AI models and LLMs, an attacker can now: How AI Helps with Cybersecurity Defenses AI might make it easier for threat actors, but it also makes it easier for businesses to defend against these threats. For products like banking applications or e-commerce, AI is already a part of threat detection and fraud detection. Your business can also take advantage of AI: Cybersecurity: Then and Now Comparison Table Cybersecurity has changed since AI and LLMs were introduced, and this means that AI in cybersecurity changes some of the ways you handle data protection and defending your network from threats. Here is a comparison table to give you guidance on what you can do to adapt to changes in the cybersecurity landscape. Threat Defense Then Defense Now Phishing Train employees to detect phishing emails themselves Use email cybersecurity to detect and block phishing emails from reaching user inboxes Ransomware Firewall rules to block ransomware communication and antivirus to stop it from installing Behavioral detection that analyzes traffic patterns. Backups that avoid ransomware detection Threat Detection Signature-based detection and SIEM rules to have a human analyst review threats AI-based baselines used to analyze traffic behaviors and automatically contain threats Threat Prevention Firewall rules, signature-based antivirus, and schedule security patching Machine learning creates predictions and scores threats for priority patching and automated detection and prevention Social Engineering Human detection using voice recognition and security questions Since voices can be cloned, employees need better training and multi-step security before being able to take action Vulnerability Management Manual penetration testing and static analysis Continual scanning and increased authentication and authorization using zero-trust frameworks Access Controls Usernames and passwords with multi-factor authentication (MFA) Session monitoring and behavioral re-authorization Malware Analysis Signature-based analysis using a database of known threats Analysis based on malware activity and behavior patterns What You Can Do for Your Business Cybersecurity If you don’t have a dedicated IT team, your current network administrator can still implement a few changes to help defend against newer AI-based threats. Even with these changes, you should still maintain some common cybersecurity procedures like disaster recovery backups, compliance monitoring, identity management, and firewall management.  Here are a few guidelines to get you started: How Corporate Technologies Can Help Managing the changing cybersecurity landscape from AI integration requires experience. The cloud can be a better way to host your applications, because the cloud offers event logging, threat detection and prevention, and native data protection tools. If your environment is ready for AI-based threats, Corporate Technologies can help. We have consultants and professionals with years of cybersecurity experience, cloud migration, and incident response to improve your defenses. To find out what Corporate Technologies can do for your cybersecurity posture, contact us today. FAQs Q: What are some ways AI in cybersecurity changes the way businesses build defenses? A: AI allows attackers to create more effective phishing emails, clone voices for better social engineering, and build malware like ransomware faster. Q: Is antivirus software still effective for network security? A: Antivirus software is good for threat prevention, but AI-based malware can evade signature-based antivirus software. Businesses should use behavior and traffic pattern-matching anti-malware software to have more effective cybersecurity defenses. Q: How does AI help with cybersecurity defenses? A: AI can combat threat actors by better detecting malware using machine learning traffic patterns, block malicious phishing emails, and find vulnerabilities that other penetration tests didn’t find. Q: Will MFA stop unauthorized access from an AI-based threat? A: Multifactor authentication is still effective, but a better way to detect unauthorized is to use AI-based threat detection that uses normal traffic patterns and user activity as a baseline to then determine anomalies. Q: How can I stop AI-based ransomware? A: Firewall rules can help with outgoing ransomware attacks, but AI-based detection and prevention using traffic patterns is better at stopping ransomware from encrypting files and communicating with the central command server.

If you use VMware, you might decide to migrate away from it after Broadcom’s acquisition. A primary factor for moving away from VMware is Broadcom’s elimination of lifetime licenses replaced by subscription services that will skyrocket IT costs. VMware Broadcom migration cost seems like a scary thought, especially if your core business systems rely on your current architecture, but you have plenty of VMware alternatives to choose from in 2026. This article will give you guidance on costs and what it takes to migrate. There are five factors to determine your VMware alternative: Depending on your profile, VMware can be 2-10 times higher than other options. Here is a table of options (we’ll discuss each option, the questions you should ask yourself when you make a decision, and which option best fits your business scope): Option 3-Year Cost vs Baseline Best for Stay on VMware (renegotiated) +50% to +200% Largest enterprises with leverage Switch hypervisors (Proxmox, Nutanix, Hyper-V, KVM) −20% to +40% Strong internal IT, standard workloads Public cloud (AWS / Azure / GCP) −10% to +100% Cloud-native organizations, bursty workloads Managed private cloud / hyperscaler platform −30% to −40% SMB/mid-market wanting predictable OPEX Hybrid Varies Mixed workload requirements What Changed – The Broadcom-VMware Situation In November 2023, Broadcom acquired VMware for $61 billion. If you run a business and use VMware, you can either pay the new subscription price or migrate to an alternative. As of 2026, the cost of a VMware subscription is much higher than alternatives. For some businesses, sticking to the VMware subscription makes sense. For most others, migrating away from VMware to another cloud solution is more affordable with the same or more benefits. Here are the four policy changes to consider if you are currently using VMware: Before you think that sticking with a VMware subscription is the right move, you might want to consider the costs. Forrester saw anecdotal reports of a 400% to 700% increase in VMware customer costs. Reuters tracked the acquisition from 2023 to 2025, and the result was one notable lawsuit from Fidelity in 2025 saying that Broadcom threatened to cut off the investment firm from key software after their massive payment changes.  Because of the numerous VMware changes and increase in cost, The Register reported that over half of VMware’s customer base was looking for alternatives. It seems like an inflated high number of customers wanting to jump ship from a platform that had mass popularity in the cloud industry, but the cost increase was astronomical. Reported customer cost-impact ranges by environment size: The price hike depends on a new subscription license called a per-core licensing model. This means that your cost is based on the number of cores in your processor instead of the virtual machine workload. If you have a small workload on a 64-core CPU, you pay more than if you have it on a 2-core CPU. This can make it hard to balance costs with scalability. For any business, these costs are astronomical for a critical service. Once you integrate a cloud service into your business workflow, replacing it is tricky. You need to make the right decision or risk spending even more money on an additional migration. Migration from VMware takes time between planning, implementation, and testing. You don’t want to migrate again to another service, but Corporate Technologies will help guide you through the decision process so that you make the right choice. The Real Cost of Staying with VMware Decision makers often have a hard time changing IT infrastructure. This can be because of the massive undertaking. Planning doesn’t often determine the true cost of changes especially if you run into obstacles. These obstacles could be difficulties with the new technology, bugs, additional infrastructure to compensate for issues, and testing any hiccups. Even testing doesn’t usually catch all bugs, so you must deal with any outcomes from unforeseen changes. Staying with VMware (or the “do nothing” option) might seem like a more cost viable option. Here is a breakdown of the three-year costs of staying with VMware for a 50-employee organization with four hosts and approximately 25 virtual machines: Line Item 3-Year Cost Range VMware subscription (per-core) $90,000 – $180,000 Hardware refresh (one cycle in 3 years) $46,000 – $50,000 Windows Server / SQL licensing $30,000 – $60,000 Backup software & storage $18,000 – $30,000 Security stack $24,000 – $48,000 Operational labor $90,000 – $180,000 3-Year Total Cost of Stay $298,000 – $548,000 Corporate Technologies analyzed these numbers for small businesses. In the Corporate Technologies Cloud Advantage Platform Analysis, 2026, it was reported that a 20-employee small business infrastructure refresh will cost about $46,000 – $50,000. Here is a breakdown for SMBs: For each month in a migration delay, a 50-employee organization pays an additional $2,500 – $5,000 in unrecoverable parallel-license costs. The takeaway is that the longer you wait, the more costs your business will incur. Your Five Migration Options Businesses have five main migration options to choose from, including the option to do nothing and stay on VMware. Every option has its pros and cons, but we’ll help you with the decision-making process.  Stay on VMware Before we get into VMware alternatives, let’s first talk about the option to simply stay on VMware and incur the costs. This option is best for large enterprises with proprietary VMware integrations where migration is just too much of a risk and IT overhead.  Pros: Cons: Three-year cost impact based on a 50-employee business: $370,000 – $548,000. Switch Hypervisors Several competitors are on the market for businesses. You can choose from Proxmox VE, Nutanix AHV, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM / Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. This option is best if you are already tied into existing hardware, such as on-premises buildouts.  Pros: Cons: Three-year cost impact based on a 50-employee business: $260,000 – $410,000. Public Cloud Large public cloud vendors have hypervisors and the hardware to run any size business. AWS (Amazon), Azure, and GCP (Google) are the most popular. Microsoft and Amazon

Let’s take a look at a common scenario: you’re a small business, your current IT infrastructure isn’t keeping up with company growth, so your current environment is holding you back. It’s time to consider cloud migration for businesses, but where do you start? This article will give you some basic guidelines to figure out when it’s time to migrate to the cloud. Here is a list of items we’ll cover: Running Out of IT Resources This item is a common one. Whether it’s storage space, slow servers, or a lack of applications, running out of IT resources slows business growth. Employees need to delete files to make room for more. Servers crash and cause data loss. Sometimes businesses can’t compete because competitors have better applications. All these issues inhibit business growth. As you run out of resources, you can frustrate customers and cause issues. In extreme cases, data loss can turn into liabilities and potential legal issues. You need enough resources for employees to do their job or your business growth will always be inhibited, but cloud migration for businesses can help eliminate this issue. Here are a few IT resources that can be migrated to the cloud: You Need Remote Employee Support The fastest way to support remote employees is to migrate to the cloud. Instead of building infrastructure like VPN and cybersecurity on-premises, you can offload it all to a cloud provider. You still need to manage the account and make sure that you configure cloud resources properly, but all the compute power and uptime is on the cloud provider. Cloud migration for businesses is a slow process, because you need to ensure that you have no downtime. You can migrate to the cloud and have remote employees test infrastructure casually. Another option is to slowly roll out new services to the cloud to allow employees time to get used to their new environment.  Here are a few reasons why cloud migration for businesses can help with remote employees: Can’t Keep Up with Software Updates and Security Patches Depending on your infrastructure, updates can be a full-time job. An IT person must constantly patch software, and some updates might cause downtime. Downtime is more stress for the IT person and loss in productivity. A loss in productivity means a loss in revenue. The issues snowball when IT infrastructure fails. When you migrate businesses to the cloud, the infrastructure is updated automatically by the cloud provider. Firmware and software is updated without intervention from administrators. You still need to configure business infrastructure properly, but you don’t need to worry about updates. This benefit takes a lot of the overhead off your IT employees and frees their time to do something else. Cloud providers automatically update: Cloud Migration for Businesses: Not Enough Space (Real Estate) for Hardware Adding infrastructure requires real estate. You need a room built for IT hardware too. The room must have low humidity, cool temperatures, and no traffic. Not every business has a room like this available. An IT closet doesn’t need to be big, but it must be the right environment for equipment. You don’t need to worry about space at all when you migrate your business to the cloud. Businesses can choose to keep some internal infrastructure, but you can also migrate everything but mobile devices to the cloud. The advantage of having cloud structure is that you can expand and reduce resources as needed. Signs that you need to migrate to the cloud: High IT Costs Computer hardware is expensive, especially since memory costs are up. Paying for new hardware is expensive. After cloud migration for businesses, you can expand your current resources at a fraction of the cost.  With cloud providers, you pay for the resources that you use. You can pay three or four figures a month, depending on the number of resources that you roll out. The benefit of cloud resources is that you can scale up during busy seasons and scale down during slow seasons to save money. One aspect of saving money with cloud computing is that you also no longer pay the utility expenses. Electricity costs also drop when you migrate your infrastructure to the cloud. You no longer need the extra cooling and 24/7 uptime for your hardware. It’s one extra cost savings most businesses forget when moving their IT to the cloud. Savings in the cloud include: Poor Performance Old hardware eventually stops working or has poor performance. You need to replace it, but it’s expensive. Instead of coming up with the funds to replace old hardware, moving to the cloud is much more cost efficient. Slow hardware performance has hidden costs also. It slows down productivity and affects revenue. You always get the latest hardware in the cloud. Poor performance affects: How Corporate Technologies Can Help Cloud Migration for Businesses Most business owners don’t know what to do to migrate to the cloud. You need to preserve uptime while being thorough in your procedures. Corporate Technologies can help.  Contact Corporate Technologies to see how we can help your cloud migration for businesses. FAQs Q: How much does cloud migration cost? A: Costs for migration to the cloud depends on the resources that you deploy and the amount of users you have onsite. Q: What happens if I run out of resources in the cloud? A: Every cloud provider has a dashboard where you can deploy more resources when you need them. Q: Can I use onsite hardware with cloud hardware? A: Yes, you can integrate cloud hardware with your onsite hardware. Q: Do I need to update cloud computing resources? A: No, resources are automatically updated by the cloud provider. Q: How do I manage cloud resources? A: You can have an IT employee manage them or outsource your cloud management to Corporate Technologies.

Every school needs IT equipment to help students learn, so an IT budget for charter schools is the necessary first step. Your charter school needs a budget before you know what you can afford. Budgeting also helps with allocating resources and prioritizing equipment. This article covers: Shift from Reactive to Proactive It might not seem like it at first, but reactive IT can be much more expensive than proactive IT. Reactive IT is when your charter school fixes issues as they come without adding infrastructure to stop the issue in the future. Proactive IT is infrastructure that stops issues before they happen. Examples of proactive IT include: Planning an IT Budget for Charter Schools at Scale If you only plan IT infrastructure for today, what happens when you have dozens more students, teachers, and administrators tomorrow? The answer is to create a budget that scales for several years in the future. It’s likely that you will need to add infrastructure in the future, so this is where your business and financial planning advisors can help. Some charter schools focus on certain industries, for example STEM or computer science. In this scenario, you need the infrastructure to support it. Science subjects (especially computer science) change frequently, so you need to allocate future budget resources to supporting these changes. A few items to consider: Consider Outsourcing to Lower Costs You can hire onsite employees, but having several dedicated onsite staff can be expensive. Outsourcing at least some of your IT management has a positive impact on your budget and can help with planning an IT budget for charter schools. Usually, this step also involves deploying some resources in the cloud to help manage them better. The cost of outsourcing ranges per person, but check with the provider. The cost also depends on the services that you need. Use a managed IT services calculator to determine your own charter school costs. Outsourcing your IT infrastructure management can help with: Student Costs Included in Planning an IT Budget for Charter Schools Budgeting for charter schools has the unique challenge of student costs. Most businesses only worry about local and remote infrastructure for employees, but charter schools often offer tablets and laptops for students. This infrastructure increases your costs, especially with the high risk of theft and damage. Insurance, maintenance, replacement, and repairs should all be included in your IT budgeting plan. Your financial plan will likely include a per-student cost, but it could also increase in the future. Make sure that you include potential future costs as you add more students to your roster. Student items that could increase your IT budget: Cybersecurity and Data Protection Schools are a good target for cyber-criminals. Most schools don’t have the resources or infrastructure to protect from sophisticated threats. Your charter school doesn’t need the most expensive infrastructure, but it should have effective cybersecurity. Monitoring and detection are essential. This item is also great for outsourcing. A dedicated managed service provider can set up monitoring and respond to incidents. Completely containing and eradicating a threat is essential for the security of your students and staff. An MSP that has the right cybersecurity professionals can preserve your data, charter school integrity and reputation, and help you avoid costly compliance fines. Cybersecurity monitoring helps with: What Does a Basic Budget Plan for Charter Schools Look Like? To create a plan, you need a plan for the plan! Here are a few tips that should guide you when you decide to make an IT budget: How Corporate Technologies Can Help Planning an IT Budget for Charter Schools Whether you’re a small charter school or you are a large charter school drowning in IT costs, a managed service provider like Corporate Technologies can help. We manage small to large businesses that need help with their IT budgets, including those with constant reactive repair spending.  Corporate Technologies services a large number of industries and covers every IT support service that you need. We can take you from start to finish with your charter school IT budget. To see what Corporate Technologies can do for you, contact us today. FAQs Q: How much does it cost per student for a charter school? A: The cost depends on what you need for each student, the number of students, and the internal infrastructure to support them. Q: What can an MSP do for a charter school? A: An MSP can help with planning, auditing, deploying, managing, and monitoring IT infrastructure for charter schools. Q: Where do I start with an IT budget for charter schools? A: The first step is to audit your current infrastructure, and then you set goals and priorities to determine what you need to purchase. Q: What IT infrastructure do I need for students at a charter school? A: Charter schools usually need tablets, laptops, endpoint security, and monitoring infrastructure to support cybersecurity. Q: Can an MSP help with reactive IT changes? A: Yes, an MSP can switch a charter school from reactive to proactive IT, which saves money on constant fixes.