UPDATES
2024-01-16: Added critical information related to ACS requirements
Overview
WithSecure will be introducing changes to our products and solutions, including client update mechanisms, starting in early 2024. This will affect all WithSecure Elements products that are installed to endpoints such as workstations, servers, and mobile devices. The changes also introduce new server addresses where the clients connect to.
We strongly recommend you bookmark this page and check back from time to time, as we will update it if more information becomes available.
Why are we making these changes?
On July 1st 2022, WithSecure and F-Secure became separate companies. As part of the separation, it was agreed that we would share some resources, but ultimately have them separated.
We are now at the stage where we have the new service resources in place. WithSecure products and services are transitioning to use them, and the old, shared resources will be retired during 2024. We want to communicate these changes, and any implied changes to the way our customers use and configure our products, so they are prepared and do not need to react urgently when the new resources are the only ones available.
In addition, the changes we are making will also help us longer-term in providing support and updates to our customers. We are also taking this opportunity to implement some things we simply could not do earlier due to the shared resources.
What are the actual changes?
Server address changes
One of the more significant changes is that we are taking into use backend services that are completely distinct from the services used by F-Secure products. This will allow us to control what happens in our backend systems to fully focus on the needs of our business customers and partners. The earlier systems had to also cope with consumer use-cases.
As some of our Elements partner and customers have strict rules on outgoing network connections (also known as “egress firewall rules”), we have published an up to date list of all the servers our clients connect to. You can find the list in this Community article.
New Download Locations
Customers using automated deployment systems to install the Elements clients, for example Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) systems, should take care to update their processes to use the new installation package download locations. The only supported locations are those which are used in the Elements Security Center’s “Download” section, and any other location such as download.sp.f-secure.com are deprecated.
Browser Extensions
The new clients will also use WithSecure browser extensions. These can be found at:
Chrome Webstore
Microsoft Edge Add-ons
Firefox Browser Add-ons
Please note that these new WithSecure extensions will only work with the updated products, as they are strongly interconnected.
macOS changes
We have a separate article listing changes for macOS.
You can find this article here
ACS certificate requirements on Microsoft Windows
With these client changes, it is MANDATORY that Microsoft Windows installations have "ACS certificate compatibility". Failure to patch Windows to provide this compatibility will result in loss of protection.
These changes were previously announced in February 2023.
You can find out more details at
https://community.withsecure.com/en/kb/articles/29714-changes-in-support-on-microsoft-windows-minimum-patch-level
When will these changes be made to the backend systems and endpoint clients?
The new backend systems are already in production, ready for the client installations to transition to start using them. The older systems will be decommissioned later in 2024.
In order for our client installations to use these new services, we will also need to publish updates to the existing clients.
The current schedule for this is still open, but we anticipate that the new clients will start to be deployed automatically during January 2024. Both the old and new backend services will run in parallel for several months to ensure a smooth transition between the old and new client installations.