Third-Party Patching: Your Supply Chain Is a Shitshow and Everyone’s Tracking Mud Through Your House

Oh for fuck’s sake. Another day, another bunch of halfwit vendors who can’t patch their own arseholes, let alone their shitty software. This article is banging on about “third-party patching” and the “business footprint we all share” – which is corporate speak for “we’re all screwed because some guy in a basement in Ohio forgot to update Apache Struts three years ago.”

You know the drill. You pay through the nose for some “enterprise-grade” pile of spaghetti code, and these bastards can barely spell CVE, let alone fix one. Then when they get popped – and they WILL get popped, probably by a script kiddie with a downloaded exploit – guess whose network is suddenly hosting the digital equivalent of a barn dance for Russian cyber criminals? Yours. Because you trusted these incompetent shitgibbons with your data.

The article whinges about “shared responsibility” and “business footprints.” Listen sunshine, the only footprint I care about is the one I’m going to plant firmly up the backside of the next vendor rep who tells me “patching is scheduled for next quarter.” Next quarter? NEXT QUARTER? While you’re sipping your soy lattes and circle-jerking about “agile methodologies,” my perimeter is getting hammered by every skiddie with a copy of Metasploit and a grudge.

And don’t get me started on the legal wank. You sign a contract that says they’re responsible for security, but when the shit hits the fan, suddenly it’s “an industry-wide issue” and “sophisticated nation-state actors” – which translates to “we used admin/password123 and left RDP open to the internet.” Then your legal team, who couldn’t find their own arseholes with both hands and a map, tells you there’s fuck-all you can do except pay the ransom and hope they don’t post your CEO’s browser history.

The real kick in the teeth? You’re supposed to audit these fuckers. Like you’ve got time to check if every third-party widget-maker has updated their Java components since the fucking Bronze Age. You’ve got Karen from Accounting screaming because her printer isn’t working, and you’re supposed to be cybersecurity auditor number one for a company that thinks MFA stands for “Massive Fucking Asspain”?

Here’s the reality: Your “business footprint” is you standing barefoot in a field of broken glass and used needles, hoping nobody steps on the rusty nail marked “SolarWinds” or “MOVEit.” Because when that hits, it’s not just your foot that gets infected – it’s the whole bloody leg. And then the board asks why you didn’t foresee that Vendor X was run by a chimpanzee with a Commodore 64.

So yeah, patch your shit. Audit your vendors. Or don’t. I don’t give a flying fuck. I’ll be in the server room with a cattle prod, waiting for the inevitable phone call.

Read the full horror story here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/third-party-patching-and-the-business-footprint-we-all-share/

Related Anecdote: Reminds me of the time I caught a vendor leaving a backdoor in their “secure” admin tool. I didn’t report