These tools are industry standards, highly active, and globally trusted by enterprise security teams.
We categorised them according to function, with the “big boy” tools towards the bottom.
Cyber Hygiene Tools
CIS Hardware and Software Asset Tracker
The Center for Internet Security (CIS) free hardware and software asset tracking spreadsheet contains examples of methods for tracking your hardware, software, and sensitive information.
They also have an active community Forum (link in the page below). Clicking on the link below will download the Excel spreadsheet.
Microsoft Defender
Use this tool to prevent known malware from running on your system. Free even if you don’t have a Microsoft family or enterprise license, bundled into Microsoft products such as Windows.
Anti-virus software will find viruses before they can infect your system. This tool will help block you from accessing known sites that have viruses or other malware.
Quad9
Use this free tool to prevent your computers and devices from connecting to known malicious sites. In just a few simple steps, you can set up Quad9 to prevent access to known malicious sites.
Anti-virus software will find viruses before they can infect your system. This tool will help block you from accessing known sites that have viruses or other malware.
They also have a video on YouTube which explains how DNS works which may be helpful.
Redsift from OnDMARC
Actively block phishing attacks and stop email impersonation with OnDMARC.
Important: This is a Trial. However, by entering voucher code GCA-CSTK at sign up you will have free use of OnDMARC for up to 100,000 emails per year, after the initial free trial period. Select the Free Trail on their page, and use the voucher code to unlock the above offer. As a friend of ours says: “30% of 100% is better than 0% of 100%”.
DMARC – Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance – is an email authentication standard that helps users protect their email domains from spoofers, spammers and phishing attacks. A DMARC policy allows a sender to indicate that their messages are protected and tells a receiver what to do if one of the authentication methods passes or fails – such as send the message or reject the message. This tool enables organizations to quickly configure security settings for all their legitimate email sources. This instantly blocks any email impersonation based phishing attacks.
https://redsift.com/pulse-platform/ondmarc
Their Knowledge Base is here for installation instructions:
GCA DMARC Setup Guide
Provided by the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA). Use this tool to implement DMARC in your business.
The purpose of this setup guide is to guide your organization through the process of creating a DMARC policy, as well as policies for Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). By implementing all three policies, your organization will have a stronger email authentication mechanism in place to help protect the brand.
DMARC – Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance – is an email authentication standard that helps users protect their email domains from spoofers, spammers and phishing attacks. A DMARC policy allows a sender to indicate that their messages are protected and tells a receiver what to do if one of the authentication methods passes or fails – such as send the message or reject the message. This tool will guide your organization through the process of creating of setting up a DMARC policy, as well as additional protections so that your organization will have a stronger email authentication mechanism in place to help protect the brand.
Valimail Monitor (DMARC)
This tool is a fully automated DMARC monitoring solution that lets you see all email senders using your domain.
Valimail Monitor is a fully automated DMARC monitoring solution that lets you see all email senders using your domain.
You’ll be armed with all the information you need to work with business stakeholders to determine which services are legitimate and to understand your domain reputation risk.
- Automates discovery of third party cloud services legitimately utilizing your domain as well as malicious actors abusing your domain for their own nefarious purposes
- Eliminates the need for manual analysis of DMARC reports
- Fast to deploy – just five minutes to point a DMARC record to the Valimail Cloud
Discover third-party services sending on your behalf, as well as potential imposters that are hijacking your brand to send fraudulent email to your customers, partners, and employees – as you!
Note: We’re unsure if this is an online tool (we hope not) or a stand-alone app download. They state that it’s free in their Solutions page, but on the page link below they use “get started for free” and “try for free”.
ProtonVPN
Use this tool to ensure your Internet connection is secure and private.
ProtonVPN is a community supported secure VPN (virtual private network), with servers located in more than 40 countries. When you use ProtonVPN to browse the web, your Internet connection is encrypted. By routing your connection through encrypted tunnels, ProtonVPN’s advanced security features ensure that an attacker cannot eavesdrop on your connection. It also allows you to access websites that might be blocked in your country. Proton VPN is available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
Let’s Encrypt
Use this tool to ensure your Internet connection is secure and private. Use this tool to get a free digital certificate to enable HTTPS (SSL/TLS) for your website and to ensure your Internet connection is secure and private.
Let’s Encrypt is a Certificate Authority which allows an organization to create certificates, such as SSL certificates, to secure websites. The service is free but does require technical knowledge to create and implement the certificates. However they have extensive documentation and a community knowledgebase. See links on their site.
ImmuniWeb Phishing Detection Test
Note: This is not a human-focused Cybersecurity awareness and training tool.
ImmuniWeb detects cybersquatting, typosquatting and phishing websites and forged (fake) accounts in social networks. Additional threats they scan for are dark web exposure & unprotected cloud storage,
This tool helps protect your brand and trademarked material by identifying domains that try to imitate yours as well as domains that contain phishing or malicious content targeting your domain, and more.
You use this tool online. Input your domain name at the site below, and it checks the web for the above threat indicators.
Specops Password Auditor
Use this tool to scan your Active Directory and identify password-related vulnerabilities.
The Specops Password Auditor scans your Active Directory and detects security weaknesses related to password settings, then uses the collected information to display multiple interactive reports containing user and password policy information. The reports include a summary of accounts using leaked passwords and comparisons of the password settings in your organization with industry standards and best practices according to multiple official standards.
Password Managers and Authenticators
More to come soon
Bitwarden Password Manager
Use this tool to control your password security in one location.
Take control of your online password security and manage private data safely from any location or device. Please note, with the free Bitwarden account, you are limited to 2 users. This means you can use Bitwarden, as well as another member of your family or a friend. Or on two of your own separate accounts (email addresses).
It is highly recommended to follow strong password guidelines (see below) when creating a master password.
- use capital letters (randomly if possible)
- use lower case letters
- use special characters
- use numbers
AI Security Testing
Snyk
Free tier AI security checks for source code, open source software, software composition analysis (SCA), static application security testing (SAST), infrastructure as code (IaC) and containers. Snyk has a very close working relationship with Anthropic AI in terms of offensive/defensive testing.
Snyk provides an independent security layer that continuously validates AI-generated code, governs development agents, and secures AI-native applications—so organisations can move fast with AI without losing control.
https://snyk.io/plans/?tab=small-teams
They also have very well-priced tiers for additional services. It’s worth a look.
Network Security & Threat Monitoring
Zeek (formerly Bro)
A powerful network security monitoring tool that translates raw network traffic into structured, actionable logs.
Corelight provides a really nice Zeek Cheatsheet which contains popular Zeek logs:
Wazuh
A brilliant free alternative to commercial EDR/SIEM tools. It handles endpoint monitoring, file integrity monitoring, and vulnerability detection under a unified, open-source platform.
Suricata
A high-performance Network Threat Detection, IDS (Intrusion Detection System), and IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) engine.
SIEM, Logging & Analytics
The Elastic (ELK) Stack
This is a longstanding, firm favourite of ours. Notably, this is what Splunk is built on. We’ve seen the ELK stack successfully deployed at both large and medium businesses. See Graylog for smaller businesses which is slightly more user friendly.
ElasticSearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK) remain a powerful combination for centralising log data.
Note: The free version uses the Elastic License or SSPL, while OpenSearch (an AWS-driven fork) offers a purely open-source Apache 2.0 alternative. There is an enormous amount of documentation and help files available.
Select the “Or download and get started” option on the below site for the free version.
Graylog Open
An exceptionally user-friendly log management platform that is often easier for small IT teams to set up and manage than a full ELK stack.
Graylog Open offers endless scalability, simplified for growing IT, Development and Security needs.
New Relic
Free Open Source Log Monitoring Tool. New Relic log management can be deployed in context and at scale. Collect, search, and correlate logs from applications, infrastructure, and devices faster.
Their site states that you get 100 GB monthly and 1 user license on the free version. Please check the Ts & Cs. They also that this tool is free forever, but that may not include the storage. 100 GB for storage of log data may be sufficient for small businesses.
https://newrelic.com/lp/logs-wglp-open-source-log-monitoring
Identity & Access Management (IAM)
Keycloak
An open-source Identity and Access Management tool that allows small businesses to easily implement Single Sign-On (SSO) and secure user authentication across their apps.
Vulnerability Management
OpenVAS (Greenbone Community Edition)
A comprehensive, enterprise-grade vulnerability scanner used to test networks and systems for known security gaps.
OPENVAS FREE is ab cross-platform (Windows/Linux/Mac) entry-level virtual appliance that provides new users with a quick and easy way to experience OPENVAS for the first time – ideal for private use and non-professional IT infrastructures. It uses the OPENVAS COMMUNITY FEED instead of the OPENVAS ENTERPRISE FEED and includes a limited set of functions which are only available in our enterprise level products.
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