Limited-Time Free Offers to Secure the Enterprise Amid COVID-19
These products and services could be of immediate help to infosec pros now protecting their organizations while working from home.
March 31, 2020
The novel coronavirus has had an impact on the global economy unlike any health-related issue in modern times. Companies have been told to close offices, while employees have been instructed to shelter in place and avoid travel. The result is an unprecedented change in IT practices at a lightning pace and on a global scale.
To help companies and individuals forced to shift IT operations practically overnight, a number of vendors have made their products and services available free for a limited time or for the duration of the pandemic. The offerings run the gamut from courses to educate employees and professionals to enterprise tools for securing a network.
For this article, we've chosen to focus on offerings that could be of immediate help to cybersecurity professionals now protecting their organizations while working from home. That means you'll see more remote network monitoring and less password management. And we didn't focus on offerings like remote conferencing, even though those are undoubtably useful in these situations. Look for them in a follow-up article soon.
This list is a work in progress: Given the very fluid environment we're all working in, as more companies offer free services for enterprise security, we will add them to this list. If you are taking advantage of any of these offers — and if they are helping with the security of your organization in this extraordinary time — let us know in the Comments section, below.
(Image: Yevhen VIA Adobe Stock)
Addigy provides unified iOS mobile device management (MDM), targeting both enterprise and educational organizations with its products. The service allows security and management teams to enforce both device and policy access across the organization. Within the product suite, the service enforces rules about the machines in the inventory (which ones are allowed on the network, how they have to be configured, etc.) and rules on the machines (what the applications on the devices can do, which parts of the network they can traverse, etc.)
Potential users can sign up for a free Addigy account here.
Awake Security is targeting its offer to a specific industry: hospitals and healthcare organizations charged with directly dealing with COVID-19 patients. The Awake Security Platform is a threat monitoring and response service that uses expert system technology to take input from a variety of sensors deployed throughout an environment. The platform analyzes that input to detect whether a threat exists, then shuts down, quarantines, or remediates the threat depending on its nature.
Organizations that want to take advantage of the company's 60-day offer can begin the process here.
Cisco is making a suite of products for remote access available for free in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Cisco Umbrella, Duo Security, and AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client are all available for 90-day licenses to organizations suddenly forced to have a remote workforce.
Cisco Umbrella is a URL filter designed to prevent employees or applications from accessing malicious websites. Duo Security verifies user identities and establishes device trust before allowing access to enterprise applications. AnyConnect is a VPN client available for both laptop computers and mobile devices.
Information on taking advantage of the 90-day offer can be found here.
Many companies, and many practices, say they can give you more effective security. But how do you know whether the help they offered others will work in your unique situation? Cymulate can simulate thousands of attacks and evaluate the effectiveness of an organization's defenses against them. The company is offering its service free for 60 days to allow organizations to test their security against current threats and attacks.
The two-month license for Cymulate's threat simulation product can be found here.
Remote workers mean remote connections from worker to enterprise. Path Solutions is making its Call Simulator available to companies to allow those connections to be simulated for network management and security purposes. The Call Simulator works to emulate VoIP and streaming connections so that IT and security professionals can look for issues ranging from dropped packets to jitter from man-in-the-middle attacks.
Call Simulator is available for download here.
Workers suddenly tasked with working from home can find themselves in need of a wide variety of security services to protect their systems and data. PC Matic provides services including address whitelisting, device authentication, RDP protection, and remote access and management. It also includes device performance features. PC Matic is making onboarding assistance available to new users at no cost.
PC Matic's solutions for endpoint security can be accessed here. Licenses are available free until June 30, 2020.
The zero-trust model was being adopted by a growing number of companies before the coronavirus outbreak. Now companies are looking at the model for their suddenly home-based workforce, including employees, contractors, and partners. To that end, Odo Security is offering its remote access solution OdoAccess free for the duration of the coronavirus crisis.
OdoAccess is based on the dynamic and contextual assessment of user attributes and device state to query and authorize remote users. Information on its free download is available here.
Enterprise IT security is hard enough when many employees are working in the office, on company-provided systems, under the watchful eyes of managers and IT staff. Suddenly embarking on a massive "work from home" experiment is the stuff of nightmares for many security professionals. SANS Security Awareness, part of the SANS Institute, is trying to bring a return to more restful sleep by offering a "Securely Working from Home" Deployment Kit.
The free kit provides security professionals with a step-by-step guide on how to rapidly deploy a training program for remote staff. The training materials are a combination of both SANS public resources and paid training materials. The kit includes videos, infographics, podcasts, newsletters, and digital signage in multiple languages. The kit is available for download here.
Waterfall Security Solutions specializes in security for OT applications, often at industrial and critical infrastructure sites. It is offering free Remote Screen View product licenses available to organizations whose employees are no longer able to travel to production or infrastructure sites.
Remote Screen View product is part of the Unidirectional Security Gateway product line. Information on the offer is available here.
Waterfall Security Solutions specializes in security for OT applications, often at industrial and critical infrastructure sites. It is offering free Remote Screen View product licenses available to organizations whose employees are no longer able to travel to production or infrastructure sites.
Remote Screen View product is part of the Unidirectional Security Gateway product line. Information on the offer is available here.
The novel coronavirus has had an impact on the global economy unlike any health-related issue in modern times. Companies have been told to close offices, while employees have been instructed to shelter in place and avoid travel. The result is an unprecedented change in IT practices at a lightning pace and on a global scale.
To help companies and individuals forced to shift IT operations practically overnight, a number of vendors have made their products and services available free for a limited time or for the duration of the pandemic. The offerings run the gamut from courses to educate employees and professionals to enterprise tools for securing a network.
For this article, we've chosen to focus on offerings that could be of immediate help to cybersecurity professionals now protecting their organizations while working from home. That means you'll see more remote network monitoring and less password management. And we didn't focus on offerings like remote conferencing, even though those are undoubtably useful in these situations. Look for them in a follow-up article soon.
This list is a work in progress: Given the very fluid environment we're all working in, as more companies offer free services for enterprise security, we will add them to this list. If you are taking advantage of any of these offers — and if they are helping with the security of your organization in this extraordinary time — let us know in the Comments section, below.
(Image: Yevhen VIA Adobe Stock)
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