Lansweeper’s Content Highlights of 2020

Top ITAM Resources 2020

For most of us, the end of 2020 couldn’t come soon enough! It’s been a trying year, indeed, and we’ve all been challenged like never before. But we made it, and now we can celebrate the holidays, knowing good things are just around the corner.

It has been an unprecedented year in numerous ways, as the businesses in every industry and sector struggled with overcoming the challenges of the global pandemic. Work from home mandates made it essential for organizations to step up their IT security initiatives, as employees signed on with their devices from outside the corporate perimeter.

What’s more, the IT explosion resulting from rapid digital transformation has made it critical for IT teams to know their IT and continuously monitor their infrastructure. To that end, Lansweeper is an essential tool for the enterprise. And as we look forward into 2021, our vision for ITAM 2.0 — the next generation of IT asset management — will gain traction as the foundation for efficient IT management, enabling the creation of a single source of truth that informs all systems and use cases.

Here we offer a recap of this year’s most valuable content resources covering these important topics. Take a look at our Covid-19 Work from Home blog posts. Learn about ITAM’s role in Healthcare. Check out our IT Heroes section to read about the amazing things IT Professionals like you are doing in their organizations. Find out what’s in development at Lansweeper, our exciting acquisition of FING’s Device Recognition Technology and our vision for ITAM 2.0. Last but not least, read our latest Customer Success Stories. It’s all here in this post!

Tools to Enable Work from Home During Covid-19 and Beyond

At the onset of Covid-19, employees everywhere left the office to work from home, and overnight, IT had a unique set of challenges: ensuring secure remote access to corporate resources, tracking a rapidly expanding number of devices, and protecting the organizations from increased risk. Lansweeper set to writing a series of helpful posts on the topic: 

• Remote IT Asset Management During the Covid-19 Crisis: Here we offer some specific guidance and resources for dealing with the rapid shift to remote working, including how to scan remote assets over the VPN with LsAgent, and how to manage assets remotely with a variety of reporting, custom actions, remote deployment and more. 
• Surprise: Cybercrime Doesn’t Do Social Distancing: For fraudsters, social distancing is an opportunity they can’t resist. This post examines some of the most common threat vectors and provides advice on how to boost security to prevent attacks and maintain business continuity. 
• Working from Home: Tips to Secure Your Remote Workforce: With employees working remotely, protecting the network’s edge — and VPN ports that enable access — is critical. This post explores DDoS attacks and provides tips for remaining vigilant and improving remote end-user security.

Hospitals have been front and center in the fight against Covid-19, and amid all the disruption, keeping hospital IT resources secure and running optimally is of paramount importance. This dedicated post on Why IT Asset Management in Healthcare is Essential takes a look at the importance of ITAM in healthcare settings for keeping patients and their data safe.

Lansweeper Honors IT Heroes

At Lansweeper, we make it a point to celebrate IT Heroes who exhibit agility and ingenuity, especially in times of crisis. To that end, we hold our annual SysAdmin Day Awards — and this year we received more than 70 nominees! When the pandemic hit, these IT leaders navigated the sudden shift to remote working with finesse, working day and night to ensure a seamless transition for employees. 

The Story Behind DTN’s IT Team – IT Heroes of 2020 puts the spotlight on our winner, the IT team at Minnesota-based DTN. We also used this post to announce the grand prize — a $2,500 donation from Lansweeper to winner’s charity of choice. Omaha-based Foodbank for the Heartland was the recipient.

We’re also eager to reshare the stories of the other IT Heroes nominated for the award, we’re sure you will find these stories very recognizable:

• IT Heroes in Action: We Had to Manage, So We Have
• IT Heroes in Action: When it Rains it Pours
• IT Hero in Action: Single-handedly Enabling Work from Home
• IT Hero in Action: Supporting the True Heroes of Today
• IT Heroes in Action: A New Challenge Every Week

This year, our Healthcare IT Heroes deserve special attention. This post showcases how Lansweeper helped an IT admin in Tanzania set up a modern IT infrastructure at The Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center as part of a charity project.

Looking Beyond MAP Toolkit 

Microsoft announced that development will be ending for MAP Toolkit. Instead, Microsoft will focus on the new Azure Migrate product. So with MAP Toolkit’s future no longer supported, and a ‚replacement‘ that doesn’t fit the bill for the majority of MAP’s use cases, what are thousands of users and service partners supposed to do? Luckily, there’s life after MAP. Read our dedicated post to understand how Lansweeper can pick up where MAP Toolkit left off.

Cybersecurity: EOL/EOS Updates

When software is phased out, the importance of ITAM is clearer than ever. Updating out-of-date software that’s no longer supported is critical to maintaining IT health across your organization. These posts explore some key EOL/EOS announcements that impacted IT teams in 2020.

• Are You Prepared for Office 2010 End of Support?: In October, Microsoft ended support for Office 2010. Learn what that means, as well as your options moving forward.
• A Comprehensive Guide to SQL Server End of Life: Microsoft will no longer provide non-security hotfixes, and warranty claims will no longer cover feature and change requests. This guide provides information on how to navigate the changes.
• The End of Support for Windows 7 is Here: This one’s big, but not to worry — Lansweeper has you covered. Read up on what to do next.
• Are You Prepared for Adobe Flash Player End of Life? Adobe has finally pulled the plug on Flash. Learn how Lansweeper can help you find all remaining vulnerable Flash installations on your network.

Monthly Patch Tuesday Audits

Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft releases a scheduled security fix, also known as “Patch Tuesday.” Every month, we create a Patch Tuesday Audit Report, which checks if the assets in your network feature the latest Windows updates. It’s a fast, easy way to understand which assets are already on the latest Windows update, and which ones still need to be patched. No wonder this is a favorite for lots of our customers.

Still Vulnerable to the Top 8 Most Exploited Vulnerabilities?

The FBI reported that in the past 4 years, there were 8 specific vulnerabilities that were most likely to be exploited. It probably won’t surprise you that 7 of the 8 most exploited software vulnerabilities are to be found in Microsoft products. Their widespread use across organizations and institutions makes them an ideal candidate for cybercriminals. The interesting thing is that most of these vulnerabilities are pretty old, yet cyber criminals have no problem to continue exploiting these publicly known software vulnerabilities to gain access to your network. Run our report to find out if you’re still at risk.

Lansweeper’s Vision for ITAM 2.0 

In the ITAM 2.0 Strategy, Lansweeper envisions a world in which every IT use case draws on a complete, accurate and always up-to-date system of record, containing detailed information about every IT asset in your infrastructure. Take a deep dive into Lansweeper’s ITAM concept and learn how to create an IT asset system of record that can be leveraged across multiple scenarios to support any IT use case or business goal.

Additionally, we have created a visionary White Paper which explores Lansweeper’s ITAM 2.0 concept in depth, and explains how to create an IT asset system of record that can be leveraged across multiple scenarios to support any IT use case or business goal — SAM, helpdesk, license management, cloud migration, cybersecurity and more — with accurate and always up-to-date asset data.

Additional ITAM 2.0 Content to Explore

• How ITAM 2.0 Enables Big Opportunities For IT Cost Optimization: Learn how a holistic approach to ITAM helps reduce costs and inform tactical and strategic decision-making.
• 5 Ways Organizations can Reduce IT Costs through ITAM 2.0: This post illustrates important ways Lansweeper reduces costs, with real-life customer use cases.
• IT, OT and IoT – How ITAM 2.0 Bridges the IT Governance Gap: Explore why organizations must extend IT governance to encompass OT and IoT, to ensure security and control costs.

What’s Happening at Lansweeper?

2020 Spring Release

The Lansweeper 2020 Spring Release significantly expanded Lansweeper’s discovery core and the depth of data retrieved for discovered assets. Among other things, we introduced Asset Radar, which identifies assets the moment they connect to the network, enabling complete coverage. It operates in real-time, scanning unobtrusively for connected devices.

For a deeper dive on Asset Radar, read our blogpost on the advantages of Passive Scanning and how this functionality enables a new cyber security use case: Rogue Device Detection, since Asset Radar continuously scans and sniffs network packets to detect unknown and potential rogue hosts.

We Acquired FING!

Lansweeper’s acquisition of FING, which provides Device Recognition Technology, was a key milestone in 2020, and foreshadows some big things to come in 2021. Read up on how this key acquisition extends and enhances Lansweeper’s IT network discovery platform with unique device identification capabilities.

Customer Cases

Our education content explains how Lansweeper solves many of the challenges of modern IT organizations, but don’t just take our word for it! In these success stories, our customers explain how they benefit from using the Lansweeper platform for everything from Cybersecurity, to IT visibility, software updates and more. 

• Imprivata Creates a Single Source of Truth, Streamlines ITAM & Cybersecurity with Lansweeper
• Cerner Strengthens Managed IT Services Offering to Healthcare Clientele with Lansweeper
• Herman Miller gains complete IT visibility, strengthens security posture with Lansweeper.

Goodbye 2020, Hello New Year!

And, that’s a wrap! All of us here at Lansweeper are forever grateful for your continued business and support. In 2021, we’ll continue to innovate around our customers’ needs and deliver cutting-edge technology to empower your success in the new — hopefully more normal — year!

We wish you a very happy holiday season and a bright and prosperous new year!