Key Takeaways
- Supply‑chain attacks over the past year have struck major players such as GitHub, LiteLLM, Axios, Cisco, SAP, and OpenAI, underscoring the need to secure the entire ecosystem.
- Cybersecurity is a collective effort; a single weak link can jeopardize everyone, especially as insecure AI infrastructure and “vibe‑coded” apps proliferate.
- Traditional security spending has favored large enterprises, leaving small‑ and medium‑sized businesses (SMBs) with tools that are either too complex, too costly, or misaligned with real‑world risk.
- Compliance‑driven “entry‑level” stacks often diverge from actual security outcomes, creating a false sense of safety for smaller organizations.
- Procurement hurdles—lengthy demos, high price tags, and reluctance to offer trials—further impede SMBs from obtaining effective protection.
- Democratizing access to enterprise‑grade security tooling through free, forever‑available plans can close the gap and raise the collective cybersecurity bar.
- Our free plan provides core coverage for up to three users, no credit card required, after a 14‑day trial, enabling SMBs to continuously monitor and remediate risks without financial barriers.
The Growing Threat of Supply Chain Attacks
Over the last twelve months, high‑profile supply‑chain incidents have hit companies ranging from GitHub and LiteLLM to Axios, Cisco, Mercor, SAP, Daemon Tools, UiPath, Mistral, and OpenAI. These breaches illustrate how a compromise in one link—whether a third‑party library, a cloud service, or a development tool—can cascade into widespread data loss, operational disruption, and reputational damage. The frequency and sophistication of these attacks have served as a wake‑up call, proving that securing only the perimeter is insufficient. Organizations must now view security as an end‑to‑end responsibility that encompasses every dependency in their software and infrastructure chains.
Security as a Collective Responsibility
The ripple effect of a single weak link means that cybersecurity is no longer an isolated concern for individual firms; it is a shared industry challenge. When a vulnerability surfaces in a widely used open‑source package or a SaaS platform, the fallout can affect thousands of downstream customers. Consequently, every security practitioner, risk manager, and even insurance underwriter has a vested interest in raising the baseline defenses across the ecosystem. Only by collectively strengthening the weakest points can the industry mitigate the amplified risk introduced by the rapid expansion of insecure AI infrastructure and hastily built “vibe‑coded” applications.
The Compliance vs. Reality Gap
Historically, robust security programs have been the privilege of large enterprises that could allocate substantial budgets and staff to risk‑management initiatives. Smaller businesses, meanwhile, have often pursued security primarily to satisfy compliance checkboxes rather than to achieve genuine protection. This has led to the proliferation of an “entry level” security stack built around regulatory frameworks. While compliance is important, it has increasingly become disconnected from actual security outcomes; meeting a standard does not guarantee resilience against real‑world threats. For many SMBs, the mistaken equation of “compliant = secure” leaves them exposed despite passing audits.
Barriers Faced by SMBs
Enterprise‑grade security solutions have traditionally been priced and architected for organizations with extensive headcount and deep pockets. Our Security Middle Child Report revealed that 46 % of midmarket security teams feel that enterprise platforms assume more staff, budget, or complexity than they can support. Additionally, 29 % report that tools marketed specifically to small and medium‑sized enterprises no longer meet their evolving needs. Consequently, SMBs are forced to choose between overextending limited resources on unsuitable tools or operating with inadequate coverage, both of which increase their vulnerability to attack.
The Problem with Procurement
Even when SMBs identify a promising security product, the acquisition process can become a prohibitive ordeal. Vendors frequently require lengthy demo cycles, complex contract negotiations, and extensive onboarding before a trial is offered—if a trial is offered at all. High price tags, slow procurement timelines, and a reluctance to let prospects test the solution first create a friction-filled journey that often ends in disappointment: the purchased tool either lacks a critical feature or fails to detect a real threat. This misalignment between purchasing effort and actual value erodes trust and discourages investment in better defenses.
Democratizing Enterprise‑Grade Security
To address these systemic issues, the industry must democratize access to high‑quality security tooling, making enterprise‑level capabilities available to organizations of all sizes without prohibitive cost or complexity. By lowering the barrier to entry, we enable the “99 %” of companies that lack massive security budgets to continuously monitor, detect, and remediate threats. This approach not only protects individual businesses but also raises the overall security posture of the supply chain, reducing the likelihood that a vulnerability in one organization will cascade to others.
Our Free Plan Philosophy
Reflecting this commitment, we have introduced a free plan that delivers core security functionality at no cost, forever. As a mostly bootstrapped company, we rely on the trust earned from over 3,000 security and IT teams rather than massive venture‑capital‑driven sales campaigns. Our offering is built on the same open‑source foundations that have long powered the cybersecurity community, and we view the free plan as a way to give back while demonstrating the value of our platform. By removing financial friction, we aim to become a seamless part of our customers’ tech stacks, enabling them to focus on remediation rather than budget justification.
What the Free Plan Includes
Interested teams can begin with a 14‑day trial of our Cloud plan to experience real‑time risk detection across their environments. If, after the trial, they are not ready to commit to a paid subscription, they are automatically transitioned to the free plan—no credit card required. The free tier provides essential coverage for up to three users within a single workspace, targeting organizations with modest attack surfaces that still need continuous, proactive security. Core capabilities such as asset discovery, vulnerability scanning, and alerting remain available, allowing SMBs to maintain a baseline defense indefinitely while they assess their evolving needs.
Join the Conversation
We invite security professionals to engage with our community and stay informed about emerging threats and best practices. Please consider joining our LinkedIn group, Information Security Community, to share insights, ask questions, and collaborate on strengthening collective defenses. Together, we can shift the paradigm from security as a luxury for the few to a standard accessible to all.