Last month we announced our intention to donate up to $50 Million of our Microsoft Active Directory Audit Tool Software to non-profit and other organizations such as K-12, public universities, hospitals & government agencies in 100+ countries worldwide.
Today, I just wanted to take a few moments to share some relevant details concerning this announcement.
ACTIVE DIRECTORY ON-PREMISES
It is a well-known fact that Microsoft Active Directory On-Premises is the bedrock of organizational cyber security worldwide.
Specifically, over 85% of all business and government organizations worldwide operate on Microsoft Active Directory today.
ACTIVE DIRECTORY IN THE CLOUD
In addition, Microsoft’s recent foray into Cloud Computing and its introduction of Microsoft Azure Active Directory, its multi-tenant cloud based directory and identity management service, as well as Amazon now offering organizations the ability to run Active Directory as a managed service via Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, will further increase the use of Active Directory.
As the world’s use of and reliance on Microsoft Active Directory increases, so does the need to obtain both basic as well as advanced cyber security insight (e.g. the ability to precisely audit privileged users in Active Directory) into Active Directory.
THE NEED FOR TRUSTWORTHY BASIC ACTIVE DIRECTORY CYBER SECURITY INSIGHT
All organizations that operate on Microsoft Active Directory, at a minimum, need to be able to perform basic Active Directory security audits, such as to be able to assess the state of all domain user accounts and security groups in Active Directory.
Over the years we have found that a large number of organizations have yet to fulfill even these basic needs, and in their attempts to fulfill these basic needs, every day IT personnel from across the world, including from many of the world’s most prominent business and government organizations, continue to seek free tooling in their attempts to fulfill these needs.
Unfortunately the concern with most free tooling out there is that there is little to no assurance of it being trustworthy or reliable, and thus, any reliance on it, and especially its use by privileged IT users could seriously jeopardize organizational security.
For instance, one such example of a free but highly inaccurate Active Directory Audit Tool can be found here.
Similarly, a malicious entity such as a hacking group or an APT could make available a seemingly useful yet covertly malicious tool for free online, which when downloaded and run by an unsuspecting user, could instantly grant them instant unauthorized access privileged access in the organization’s IT network.
Unfortunately, even though the use of potentially untrustworthy free tooling could substantially endanger organizational security, thousands of IT personnel continue to seek, download and use potentially untrustworthy free Active Directory audit software, thus exposing their organizations to risk.
To help all organizations worldwide trustworthily fulfill their basic Active Directory security audit needs, we have decided to donate $50 Million worth of our entry-level Active Directory Security Audit Software to non-profit organizations, as well as make available a limited version of our trustworthy entry-level Gold Finger Active Directory Security Audit Tool, completely free.
Of course, we primarily help organizations fulfill their advanced Active Directory Audit needs, such as privileged access audit, attack surface reduction, insider threat protection and regulatory audit and compliance, so this is the least we can do for them.
Of course, we primarily help organizations fulfill their advanced Active Directory Audit needs, such as privileged access audit, attack surface reduction, insider threat protection and regulatory audit and compliance, so this is the least we can do for them.
DONATING UP TO $50 MILLION IN ACTIVE DIRECTORY AUDIT TOOLING
To help non-profit and other needy organizations worldwide, we have decided to donate up to $50 Million of our trustworthy Microsoft Active Directory Security Audit Tool Software, measured at fair market value, to non-profit and other organizations such as K-12 schools, public universities, hospitals and government agencies across over 100 countries worldwide.
The average donation should be in the vicinity of $10,000 per organization, and we intend to donate our software to approximately 5,000 organizations across 100+ countries. In effect, each such organization will receive an unlimited annual user license of our commercially licensable Active Directory Security Audit Tool, thus empowering all their IT personnel to be able to easily and trustworthily perform basic Active Directory Audits.
OUR FREE ACTIVE DIRECTORY AUDIT TOOL
OUR FREE ACTIVE DIRECTORY AUDIT TOOL
In addition to the donation of our entry-level Active Directory Security Audit software, we also made available a free version of the tool, so that all organizations worldwide can trustworthily fulfill their basic Active Directory security audit needs.
Our free Active Directory Audit Tool is a limited version of our licensable Active Directory Security Audit Tool. It lets IT personnel worldwide audit the basic security state of any Active Directory deployment in the world trustworthily and at a button's touch.
Our $50M donation represents a small fraction of the annual potential for our globally deployed Gold Finger product. As the world's top cyber security company, and possibly the world's most security conscious company, this is the least we can do.
Best wishes,
Sanjay