Automox may not be a name you have heard of, but it's one we are sure you will hear more of. We started using Automox internally and for customers around 18 months ago, after trying to find a modern, cloud-based update management system that would support multiple OS's - basically something we could use for our cloud customers.
The company offers cloud-delivered cyber-hygiene and patch management and recently completed their series B funding round which included an investment from none-other-than leading EDR company, Crowdstrike. This has also come with some new talent entering their board.
Automox has taken a much needed fresh approach to the discipline of update management by reorienting around managing your attack surface rather than a purely operational focus on rolling out patches. What this means is you can now look at your level of exposure due to unpatched systems, and understand the risks associated with the vulnerabilities you may have. This allows informed decision making about applying patches, and then executing on this, which Automox does an excellent job at through a policy-driven approach to update management allowing you to create granular patch policies for different groups of endpoints.
The approach is perfect for customers such as Tower Insurance who are moving towards zero-trust network access and the new realities of work-from-anywhere, with Tower set to deploy the solution to 1000 endpoints.
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"Tower Insurance required a modern capability for patching as part of its transformation programme," said Darren Beattie, Manager Networks and Access at Tower Insurance. "Automox was mentioned by a vendor to compliment our other products in the management suite, so an evaluation was arranged. From the get-go, Automox was a very simple, clean solution that just worked. Tower had more insights to the status of a machine, whether it was Windows, Linux or Mac. The ability to simply schedule OS patching, update 3rd party applications and to extensively use the 'worklets' feature to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of security patching was a game-changer for Tower." |
Some key features of Automox include:
- Cloud-based update management with outbound connections established from the endpoint (no need for inbound network access)
- Patching of Windows, Linux and OSX as well as a growing number of applications
- Automation through Worklets (kinda like scripting)
In one customer example, we use Automox to not only patch their AWS based cloud environment but also automate the configuration of their ELB to remove traffic from servers while updates occur.
Approaching update management from the perspective of minimising your attack surface, provides an actionable approach to vulnerability management. Often vulnerability scanning and management can result in a long to-do list. Automox flips that on its head by allowing for automated remediation of vulnerabilities it detects in your environment.
