AUSTIN, Texas – August 05, 2015 – NSS Labs, Inc., the world’s leading security research and advisory company, announced today it has launched a free version of the Cyber Advanced Warning System™ (CAWS), called CAWS Community.

CAWS Community provides free visibility into current and past exploits in use by adversaries around the world. Active exploits are identified through the company’s unique exploit harvesting infrastructure – providing specific exploit information as opposed to generic threat intelligence or broad vulnerability data.

In addition to Community, NSS is making the full CAWS application suite available through a free 30 day trial. At the end of the trial, the user may elect to join Community, or choose varying levels of subscriptions through a suite of applications called ThreatViewer™, ShieldViewerTM and RiskViewerTM.

ThreatViewer informs users which operating system / application combinations are at risk from a given exploit. This data provides continuous insight into which defenses, e.g., patch, signature, hash, or rule updates, should be prioritized for threat protection triage.

ShieldViewer allows users to create detailed profiles comprised of specific security defense in depth chains – exposing exploits that can bypass a given network zone defense. NSS leverages its continuous security product testing to provide this unique visibility.

RiskViewer delivers ‘what-if’ modeling – enabling a security investment planner to quickly and easily assess questions like, “Had I chosen a different vendor solution, would I be better protected?”, “Should I update my applications more frequently?”, or “Should I invest in a new security product to mitigate risk?”

“Providing free cyber risk information to all companies – small or large – was an important decision for NSS,” said Vikram Phatak, CEO of NSS Labs. “No organization can protect against everything all the time. And, as recent attacks have shown, size or type of company has little to do with who should be concerned. Our continuous testing and active exploit intelligence can help any organization prioritize efforts against the threats that pose the most risk,” added Phatak.

The Cyber Advanced Warning System was launched in March 2015, but was initially restricted to a smaller number of customers. Now, CAWS provides value to any organization on a continuous basis, and has feature/capacity expansion subscriptions at rates affordable to all market segments.