Today it is my pleasure to unveil a no-limit free license for the Sternum platform. With it, OpenWrt users will be able to activate Sternum security and observability solutions on their own on up to 3 devices, and we plan to soon expand the coverage to other flavors of Linux and RTOS (e.g., Zephyr, FreeRTOS, VxWorks, Micrium, etc.)
This free license is the first of its kind in the IoT security space. With it we hope to set the tone for a new standard for openness and trust-led growth in our industry. ‘Trust’ being the key notion here, and the main thing we are after with this transparent approach, that allows users to get first-hand experience with our platform.
To start using Sternum for free, visit https://app.sternum.cloud/home and click the “Get Started” button, which will take you through a quick installation process. To learn more about the free license installation and features, check out this video below.
See Sternum in Action
Trust is the answer
IoT security has too often taken a backseat to other development priorities and strict release cycles. According to the Verizon Mobile Security Index 2021 report, cutting corners on security is partially to blame. Specifically, 41% of respondents in the study admitted to sacrificing IoT security to “get the job done.”
What’s the missing element? We believe that the answer is Trust.
For most device manufacturers, the product development teams have full authority to test, suggest and implement any security solutions. However, (like us) they are tinkerers and need to be able to “touch’ a technology to become comfortable.
And this is where the problems start because – when it comes to IoT security – test-driving a solution is painstakingly complex, requiring the sign-off from multiple stakeholders, hours of sales calls with the vendor and mountains of paperwork.
To make matters worse, the space is quickly becoming saturated with players that make impressive marketing claims but fail to deliver during the evaluation phases. In other words, you end up wasting time just for the privilege of being let down and forced to compromise.
Given the situation, it’s no wonder that many engineers conclude they can’t tolerate the impact on their development cycle. And so it becomes our responsibility to flip the script and win back user trust – to create easier ways to experience IoT security solutions.
In other industries this user-first approach has already been proven to remove similar hurdles, and became the new standard for doing business, and IoT security should be no different. Here too, putting the product into the hands of the users, and allowing them to reach their own conclusions, can be a powerful way to win back user trust, boost adoption and help disregard all of those past disappointments.
Don’t take our word for it
At Sternum, we probably have more to gain from trust-led-growth than most. Our patented EIV (Embedded Integrity Verification) technology is truly unique. So much so that, oftentimes, the first response we get is ”this is too good to be true”.
The blame lies with our feature list, which reads more like a wish list than an actual product:
- Deterministic in-device security that offers blanket protection from thousands of attack vectors (e.g., 96.5% prevention rate for all memory-related vulnerabilities).
- Zero-day mitigation that saves 60-80% of costs for “under-fire” security patches (e.g., how we blocked Ripple20 OOTB).
- Securing from supply-chain attacks that protect not only your firmware but also third-party libraries.
- Real-time insights of all device functions that feed into an AI anomaly detection engine, for both security and operational purposes (e.g., abnormal resource usage).
- Detailed timelines of all changes, available not only for attack flows but also for any kind of root cause analysis
- Ability to streamline security compliance for thousands of devices at the same time.
- Average performance overhead of 3% or less, for all of the above.
Adding to the disbelief is our integration options, which cover pretty much all Linux and RTOS devices, enable direct CI/CD integration, and allow the solution to work equally well for connected and disconnected devices…
And if you’re thinking “Yeah right!”, I can’t say I blame you.
This is exactly why we want to get our solution into the hands of the users. So please, DON’T take my word for it. Go ahead, use our free OpenWrt license and test it for yourself.
And if you don’t have an OpenWrt device, just reach out and we will schedule a demo for your OS flavor, and give you a chance to check out Sternum in action.
You`ll find out that it’s not perfect. No product ever is. But it’s pretty amazing, if I may say so myself, and we are just getting started.
