Small-to-midsized businesses have smaller IT budgets but face the same security threats as the larger enterprises. In fact, they may be more vulnerable to cyber-attackers precisely because they are less likely to have sophisticated security tools in place.
Shavlik Technologies announced May 9 it will be offering Shavlik Security Advisor, an enterprise-class IT management tool, to SMB customers as part of its “Freemium” model. The company’s cloud-based IT management product IT.Shavlik and Shavlik NetChk vProtect, a patching management tool for virtual environments will also be available from the Shavlik homepage.
“We are seeing an increased need for IT management technologies that help SMBs address the same challenges that the world’s largest enterprises are grappling with,” said Mark Shavlik, CEO of Shavlik Technologies.
Shavlik Security Advisor scans all physical and virtual machines on the network to determine what patches are missing and which ones need to be applied immediately to address significant security risks. A browser-based security assessment tool, it generates a detailed report providing a detailed snapshot of the network environment with patch information. IT managers will be able to look at a ranked list to determine which machines are at most risk, or a list of software by vendor requiring updates.
IT administrators receive free unlimited patch and asset scanning, remediation and scheduling for one machine via IT.Shavlik. NetChk vProtect offers one free CPU (approximately 10 virtual machines) license for scanning and deployment of patches in their virtual environment.
It’s a good move for Shavlik, as they are protecting SMB customers with powerful security tools. The “Freemium” offerings give the SMB the chance to test-drive enterprise-class IT management technologies such as IT.Shavlik and NetChk vProtect without a significant cash outlay. Shavlik Security Advisor also gives the SMB visibility into the number of vulnerable machines and applications they might not otherwise have, according to Shavlik.