The Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic is causing ongoing global disruption, in addition to the obvious illness and loss of life in most corners of the globe.

Many countries are at different levels of lock-down, supported by the requirement or strong advice to work from home (WFH) if you possibly can.  This is putting some strain on the technical capabilities and budget of many individuals and organisations who were not previously well prepared for ongoing remote working.  Some of that strain is technical and quite visible, and some of it is security-related and more hidden.

Here we wanted to let you know what you can get essentially for free to help with the technical side of things.  Many companies are have stepped up to offer software services free of charge (or on an extended free trial basis) for temporary, albeit usefully long, periods.

We encourage you to put to one side any question of opportunism and focus on the good being offered here.

The best, frequently updated summary we are aware of is on Lawrence Abrams’ Bleeping Computer news site, at this link.  Go take a look at that directly, because they deserve the clicks.

But some highlights include:

Also, here are phew we are keen to provide free advice to anyone who would like to talk about the security of their home network, or remote working set-up.  We are aware of both the reduction in security associated with most remote working environments, and unfortunately also aware that this is where hacker and bot attention is rapidly moving in response to the pandemic and the global reaction.

It is important that your remote access is not only reliable but also secure, so that your business suffers minimal disruption and isn’t burdened with a security breach at the worst possible time.

So if we can help you to understand and improve your, or your organisation’s remote working set-up, we’ll gladly give you some help with that, on the house.

Please use the phone numbers or contact form on our Contact page.