Fleetsmith January 2019 Product Update

by Frank Yang

Happy (belated) new year! It’s 2019; new year, ever-evolving Fleetsmith.

While we have many features in flight, here’s a quick overview of what changed in the catalog in January:

As you may have already noticed, a fresh batch of OS releases are now available in the Fleetsmith Catalog!

Be sure to enforce the latest version for your fleet so you have access to all features and security patches. Have you enforced it yet? You should!

Auth & Screenlock: Enforcing Password Reset

We’ve added a new enforcement option to our Auth & Screenlock app: Enforce Password Reset.

Turning this option on will force every user with this app in their profile to reset their password at their next login window authentication, which takes all the guesswork out of mass password resets.

Need to give guidance to your team about password security? We’ve got your back. Check out our recent blog post about modern password security, which cuts through the misinformation to clarify what actually matters.

Application Layer Firewall: A Revision

We’ve overhauled the way we enforce Application Layer Firewall in response to your feedback. These changes augment the normal MDM functionality and make it even more robust than the way Apple designed it.

Normally, Apple’s Configuration Profile sets up the Application Layer Firewall just once during installation, but then fails to enforce those values over time. That can lead to the settings drifting from what is in the profile. We can’t pinpoint a single reason for settings drift — we’ve found it can be reliably accomplished using sudo socketfilterfw …, but it could even be changed by some 3rd party software.

In any case, this means the Configuration Profile on its own is not good enough. We take this very seriously. If you as the admin have set a firewall enforcement, then it should stay enforced, period. Our new implementation continually audits the firewall settings to ensure they match the what you’ve configured, and fixes them if they’ve drifted. That way, you can be sure your intended configuration is always truly enforced.

Google Endpoint Verification Agent

Google recently released a lightweight, easy-to-deploy desktop device reporting solution for GCP, Cloud Identity and G Suite customers. Google Endpoint Verification works in tandem with Fleetsmith, and consists of a Chrome extension and native app. Read more about it here!

And finally,

Some things you might have missed over the holidays…

• Adobe Acrobat DC
• Android Studio
• macOS Native VPN Settings

Thanks for another great month! As usual, if you have any questions or comments about these new additions, feel free to drop us a line at support@fleetsmithhq.com.

Originally published at blog.fleetsmith.com on February 7, 2019.