Should I Bother? Fast Patch Filtering for Statically-Configured Software Variants

In the face of critical security vulnerabilities, patch and update management are a crucial and challenging part of the software life cycle. In software product families, patching becomes even more challenging as we have to support different variants, which are not equally affected by critical patches. While the naive “better-patched-than-sorry” approach will apply all necessary updates, it provokes avoidable costs for developers and customers.