Emily Brown
Feb 9, 2021
15 min read
In January 2020, the team at Hexnode was pretty excited over being a part of MWC (Mobile World Conference) 2020 in Barcelona, Spain. Plans were made and preparations were in full swing to make it a memorable experience for everyone. However, MWC had to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I think it was around then that the full seriousness of the situation registered. Back then, we were still optimistic and felt like it would all pass over in a couple of months. We all know how that turned out, don’t we? The COVID-19 pandemic affected billions of lives around the world, either directly or indirectly. While it was certainly an unanticipated disaster, I must say that I am impressed with how we banded together regardless of race, creed, or gender to fight the pandemic in a million different ways. We saw no dearth of innovations as everyone endeavored to make lives just a little bit easier in the “new normal”.
At Hexnode, the utmost priority was the customers. Now that working from the office was no longer an option, employees from around the world started working remotely from the safety of their homes. Remote device management was not a luxury, it was a requirement. To continue providing seamless device management capabilities to customers around the world, Hexnode took prompt action against the pandemic.
Read more on Hexnode’s response to the pandemic.
While ensuring continued service to the customers, the team at Hexnode also worked relentlessly to release new features that were in demand. Here are some features you cannot miss:
Okta is a cloud-based identity access management solution that is widely used by organizations worldwide to secure identities within the organizations. The Single-Sign-On (SSO) feature from Okta is an especially popular feature that allows the users to sign in to multiple applications using a single credential for authentication. Integration of Okta with Hexnode has been a feature that was very much in demand among the customers.
Integrating Okta with your Hexnode account, you can achieve higher standards of device and identity management. Here are the things you can do after integrating your organization’s Okta account with your Hexnode account:
Security never goes out of fashion. In a race to make the managed devices more secure, Hexnode introduced the feature Media Management for Mac last year. The Hexnode admin has control over all the external/internal media, disk images, and optical media on the macOS devices. In addition to configuring advanced settings, Hexnode allows the admin to allow/deny the media use from users so that only authorized users can access the media.
Now: Use Hexnode to remotely bind the managed Mac machines to the Active Directory.
Sometimes, the situation demands for the managed device to be connected to a VPN at all times. Always On VPN gives full control over the device traffic to the organization as it tunnels the traffic back to the organization. So now, the admin can monitor and filter the traffic, secure the data transmission within the network, allow traffic from selected captive networking apps outside the VPN tunnel, and more. The admin can exempt certain system services such as Voicemail, AirPrint, and Cellular Services from connecting to the Always On VPN.
With Hexnode, Jack can simply select all the macOS devices and execute a “Broadcast Message” action. All he would need to do is to type in the message and click send.
Kernel Extensions (or KEXTs) is a bundle that extends the kernel. It provides the developers with the ability to load the kernel extensions at the end user’s devices dynamically. The kernel extensions could be loaded without the user’s consent before the macOS High Sierra update. For the devices running macOS High Sierra and the higher versions, the admin can use Hexnode to whitelist kernel extensions that can be loaded without the user approval to the managed devices.
Microsoft Windows Defender is an anti-malware tool that is a component of the Windows 10 operating system. Windows Defender offers real-time protection to the devices so that the users can use their devices without any fear of viruses, malware, or other such threats.
An organization often uses a set of apps. These apps are either absolutely essential for working in the organization or are productivity tools. App Catalog for Mac is a convenient feature that allows the admin to set up a custom app store in the managed Macs. The admin can configure multiple app catalogs for targeted user groups to provision the apps efficiently.
Several new settings were introduced to Android Kiosk mode. Previously, advanced kiosk settings were supported only if Hexnode Browser Lite was the default kiosk browser. Now, the support for these settings has been extended to Hexnode Kiosk Browser too. Manual kiosk exit has been made easier if the admin desires it. The admin can choose to show the option for manual exit in the peripheral settings in Android Kiosk mode. The user can then exit the Kiosk mode using the exit password provided by the admin.
The features listed here are really just a drop in the ocean. For a complete list of all the new features released, refer to our release notes.
Hexnode had other great things planned for 2020. We had planned to host Hexnode’s own User Conference to interact with our customers and partners and to provide networking opportunities to endpoint security experts throughout the world. Hexnode made history with HexCon20, Hexnode’s first ever user conference. The event was conducted entirely virtually and was joined by experts and endpoint security enthusiasts from different parts of the world. Spanning over two days (Dec 2-3, 2020), HexCon20 was a resounding success. It was such a success that initially, our streaming servers broke from all the traffic. But that is a story for another blog.
A whole new look for Hexnode MDM was revealed, with new customizations and an even more attractive UI. The most exciting part was undoubtedly the unveiling of the new product: Hexnode Do.
“Hexnode Do aspires to be a pinch of data loss prevention a whole lot of SaaS operations, with equal parts of User security and Employee lifecycle management”, says Bijo, Co-founder and COO at Hexnode.
The first version of Hexnode Do is expected to be up and running by Q1 of 2021.
Training sessions were also held for Hexnode enthusiasts on popular topics like Mac and Windows Management.
Check out HexCon 20 Day 1 and Day 2 Highlights to know more.
Hexnode Certified Professional covers all the basics of UEM, enrollment methods, app management, kiosk management, remote management capabilities, and more. This program is designed so that even absolute beginners can learn the ropes around endpoint management.
Hexnode Certified Expert is an expert level program for Hexnode Certified Professionals. This program covers advanced device management capabilities, security policies, integrations, and more. This certification proves the expertise in device management with Hexnode.
Now, what is a conference without some games? At HexCon, the attendees had fun playing games like Among Us, Pictionary, Scavenger Hunt, word puzzles, and virtual trivia. With lucrative prizes and even swag directly mailed to their homes, there was certainly some excitement
One of the most commonly heard phrases in 2020 was “in these turbulent/trying times”. The term is quite apt, as all of us kept trying to acclimatize ourselves to this new, unfamiliar world, all the while trying to keep fear of the pandemic at bay. While we cannot say that 2020 was the best year, we can be absolutely proud that we did not let the pandemic defeat us. Hexnode played its part in keeping up the standards of endpoint security and device management, with new and essential features, and even hosting the first ever HexCon virtually. We look forward to what this year brings, a year (hopefully) defeating the pandemic for good.
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