About third-party software updates
Kaspersky Security Center enables you to manage updates of third-party software installed on managed devices and fix vulnerabilities in Microsoft applications and other software makers' products through installation of required updates.
Kaspersky Security Center searches for updates through the Find vulnerabilities and required updates task. When this task is complete, Administration Server receives the lists of detected vulnerabilities and required updates for the third-party software installed on the devices that you specified in the task properties. After viewing information about available updates, you can install them on devices.
Kaspersky Security Center updates some applications by removing the previous version of the application and installing the new one.
A user interaction may be required when you update a third-party application or fix a vulnerability in a third-party application on a managed device. For example, the user may be prompted to close the third-party application if it is currently open.
For security reasons, any third-party software updates that you install by using the Vulnerability and patch management feature are automatically scanned for malware by Kaspersky technologies. These technologies are used for automatic file check and include virus scan, static analysis, dynamic analysis, behavior analysis in the sandbox environment, and machine learning.
Kaspersky experts do not perform manual analysis of third-party software updates that can be installed by using the Vulnerability and patch management feature. In addition, Kaspersky experts do not search for vulnerabilities (known or unknown) or undocumented features in such updates, nor do they perform other types of analysis of the updates other than those specified in the paragraph above.
Tasks for installing third-party software updates
When metadata of the third-party software updates is downloaded to the repository, you can install the updates on client devices by using the following tasks:
- The Install required updates and fix vulnerabilities task
The Install required updates and fix vulnerabilities task is used to install updates for Microsoft applications, including the updates provided by the Windows Update service, and updates of other vendors' products. Note that this task can be created only if you have the license for the Vulnerability and patch management feature.
When this task is complete, the updates are installed on the managed devices automatically. When metadata of new updates is downloaded to the Administration Server repository, Kaspersky Security Center checks whether the updates meet the criteria specified in the update rules. All new updates that meet the criteria will be downloaded and installed automatically at the next task run.
- The Install Windows Update updates task
The Install Windows Update updates task does not require a license, but it can be used to install Windows Update updates only.
When this task is complete, only those updates that are specified in the task properties are installed. In future, if you want to install new updates downloaded to the Administration Server repository, you must add the required updates to the list of updates in the existing task or create a new Install Windows Update updates task.
Using Administration Server as WSUS server
Information about available updates for Microsoft Windows is provided by the Windows Update service. The Administration Server can be used as the Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server. To use Administration Server as the WSUS server, you create the Perform Windows Update synchronization task and select the Use Administration Server as WSUS server option in the Network Agent policy. After you have configured data synchronization with Windows Update, Administration Server provides updates to Windows Update services on devices in centralized mode and with the set frequency.
