Everyone wants the same outcome: protect their organization. So why do security and IT teams keep working against each other?
The answer sits in patch management, where good intentions collide with operational reality.
Security teams push for rapid deployment to close vulnerability windows, while IT teams worry about system stability and business continuity.
Both have valid concerns, but the disconnect creates exactly the kind of gaps that attackers exploit.
Chief Product Officer, Ivanti.
Recent research reveals just how fractured this relationship has become.
When asked about their biggest challenges, 44% of security professionals cite managing security risks as a key problem in their relationship with IT, according to research.
That’s not a communication issue — that’s a fundamental breakdown.
Part of the problem is tactical. Security and IT teams often use completely different toolsets, creating fragmented views of risk and weakening coordination.
Some 40% of organizations point to using different tools as a source of friction, whilst 38% say sharing data is a struggle.
Picture this scenario: security tools flag a critical vulnerability that needs immediate patching. Meanwhile, IT’s monitoring systems show that deploying updates during peak business hours could cause service disruptions.
Without shared visibility into both the threat context and operational impact, teams end up making decisions in isolation.
This tool fragmentation creates more than inconvenience. When security can’t see operational constraints and IT can’t see threat intelligence, you get suboptimal decisions across the board.
Security might push for emergency patching that disrupts business operations, or IT might delay critical updates without understanding the true risk exposure.
When collaboration breaks down
The data shows widespread coordination problems. A third of organizations report difficulty collaborating across security and IT teams.
That translates into teams working in parallel rather than as partners, often duplicating effort or creating conflicting priorities.
Consider vulnerability assessments. Security teams identify and prioritize threats based on exploitability and potential impact.
IT teams assess the same vulnerabilities through the lens of deployment complexity and business disruption. Without proper collaboration, these assessments remain separate, leading to decision-making conflicts.
This breakdown becomes especially problematic during incident response.
When a critical vulnerability emerges, successful remediation requires both security context (how dangerous is this threat?) and operational knowledge (what’s the safest way to deploy fixes?).
Teams operating in silos can’t effectively synthesize this information.
Risk interpretation can be, well, risky
Perhaps the most significant challenge is philosophical. Security and IT teams interpret risk differently, creating tension and mixed messaging that doesn’t align with organizational priorities.
Research shows that 40% of security professionals believe IT teams don’t fully understand the organization’s risk tolerance.
This perception gap creates friction when making patching decisions. Security might view a vulnerability as an urgent business threat, whilst IT sees it as manageable within routine maintenance cycles.
The disconnect often stems from different risk frameworks. Security teams typically evaluate threats based on potential damage and likelihood of exploitation.
IT teams consider operational risks like system downtime, user productivity impact and rollback complexity. Both perspectives are necessary, but without alignment, they pull decisions in different directions.
Building a shared foundation
Successful organizations address these challenges by creating shared visibility and common risk frameworks. This means investing in integrated toolsets that give both teams comprehensive views of threats and operational constraints.
The most effective approach starts with shared metrics. Instead of security teams measuring mean time to patch and IT teams measuring system uptime independently, organizations need metrics that capture both security effectiveness and operational stability.
Examples include metrics like “critical vulnerabilities patched within SLA without business disruption” or “security incidents prevented whilst maintaining operational targets.”
Risk-based patch prioritization offers another path forward. Rather than treating all vulnerabilities equally, this approach considers real-world factors: exploit availability, asset importance and potential business impact.
When both teams use the same prioritization framework, conflicts decrease and resource allocation improves.
Communication protocols matter as well. Regular cross-team meetings to review vulnerability assessments and patching schedules help identify potential conflicts before they become urgent decisions.
These sessions should include both threat intelligence updates and operational capacity planning.
Technology as an enabler
Modern patch management platforms can help bridge the gap by providing shared visibility into both security and operational metrics.
These tools can automatically assess vulnerability severity against business context, helping teams make informed decisions about timing and deployment strategies.
Automation also reduces friction by handling routine patching decisions according to predefined rules. For non-critical systems, automated patching can proceed based on security priorities.
For business-critical systems, automation can schedule patches during maintenance windows whilst ensuring proper testing and rollback procedures.
The key is ensuring that automation serves both security and operational requirements rather than optimizing for one at the expense of the other.
Making it work
The most important step is recognizing that security and IT tensions around patching aren’t personality conflicts — they’re structural problems that require systematic solutions.
Start by creating shared visibility into both threat intelligence and operational constraints. Invest in tools that serve both teams rather than maintaining separate security and IT toolsets. Develop common risk frameworks that account for both security threats and business impact.
Most importantly, ensure that patch management decisions consider the full context: threat severity, operational impact and business priorities.
When teams have shared information and aligned incentives, the natural tension between security urgency and operational stability becomes productive rather than destructive.
Done right, security and IT teams become complementary rather than competitive. The organization gets both strong security posture and reliable operations — exactly what everyone wanted from the start.
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