PatchID

PatchID is a unique identifier assigned to a software patch to enable reference, tracking, and management across development, testing, and deployment environments. It may be issued by a software vendor, a patch management system, or an internal change-management workflow. The identifier allows administrators to link patches to the underlying issues they fix, such as security vulnerabilities, functional defects, or compatibility problems, and to associate patches with affected products, versions, and components.

In vulnerability and patch management, patchIDs are used to inventory and correlate scans with remediation steps. They are recorded in patch catalogs or databases (patch management databases, PMDBs) and surface attributes such as severity, affected versions, dependencies, prerequisites, reboot requirements, and installation instructions. The same patchID may appear in multiple advisories or products if the patch affects multiple platforms.

Lifecycle: patchIDs are created when a patch is published or identified; they are used during testing, approval, deployment, and verification; and they may be superseded or replaced by newer patches, with lineage preserved by the patchID history.

Examples and scope: Some ecosystems reference patch identifiers that resemble knowledge-base numbers (for example, a vendor KB article) or internal codes like PATCH-2024-07-001. In other contexts, patching is tracked by package version numbers rather than a separate patchID. The term is therefore context-dependent and not universally standardized.

See also vulnerability management, patch management, change management.