1. A computer program product for measuring a catastrophic failure rate in software updates, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing executable computer program code for performing a method comprising: sending software updates to a plurality of computers, the software updates installing update check programs on the computers and configuring the update check programs to execute at a specified reporting time after the update check program installation; receiving from a plurality of the update check programs a positive operations notification at the specified reporting time indicating that the update check programs are okay; tracking the number of positive operations notifications received in comparison to the number of the software updates sent; detecting a high catastrophic failure rate for the software updates responsive to the number of positive operations notifications received being below an expected threshold number of positive operations notifications that should be received by the specified reporting time; and determining whether the software updates sent are causing catastrophic failures in the computers based on the detection of a high catastrophic failure rate.