What 2025 Taught Us About Patching – and How to Do It Right in 2026

2025 didn’t just increase vulnerability volume; it exposed a broken patching model. With 1,130+ CVEs, escalating zero-day attacks, and elevation-of-privilege vulnerabilities dominating breach paths, security and IT teams learned the hard way that patch-first doesn’t always mean risk-reduced. In this session, experts from Qualys break down what failed in 2025, and why 2026 demands a risk-driven, remediation-first approach. You’ll see how TruRisk Eliminate helps organizations handle what traditional patching can’t: - Zero-day vulnerabilities - End-of-life software - Business-critical systems that can’t tolerate downtime - Configuration-based and non-patchable vulnerabilities We’ll contrast the old, panic-driven patching model with a modern approach built on precision, automation, and engineered resilience, so you’re not repeating the same outages this year. What You’ll Learn:- 1. Why non-patchable vulnerabilities are becoming the biggest blind spot, and how to address them with permanent fix strategies 2. How to handle critical vulnerabilities that can’t be patched immediately using mitigation-first approaches 3. How to reduce patch failures with risk-aware testing and patch reliability strategies 4. The mindset shift from: - Security-driven panic → Risk-driven precision - One-time mass deployments → Content & ring-based rollouts - Hero-based recovery → Automated, engineered resilience 5. What a 2026-ready patching and remediation model actually looks like in production.