According to an April 2006 report from the Yankee Group consultancy in Boston, Mass., the various 
security investments enterprises have made do, indeed, make it more difficult for criminals, spies and miscreants to break into corporate networks. However, the report says the criminal element is focusing on new attack strategies, one of which is quickly creating and launching exploits to vulnerabilities before enterprises can patch against them.
The so-called zero-day (0 day) attack, where an attack is launched against a vulnerability before a patch is created to plug that vulnerability, has long been a great fear of any security professional. With the criminal element actively seeking out opportunities for such an exploit, its more important than ever for organizations to take stock of their patching strategy.
In so doing, you are likely to come across an age-old argument regarding which type of patching solution is more effective, agent-based or agentless. In many respects, the argument is a red herring because you can do most of the same things with one architecture that you can with the other. They are simply different ways of performing the same job, either using a small software agent or polling from a central location to collect data on the target system. The Truth about Patching – IT Observer
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