By Stephen Nakrosis

Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday said it was introducing two new security initiatives intended to help protect organizations and individuals from cybersecurity threats.

The company said in October it will make available to the public cybersecurity training materials it developed. The company said the material, which will be free of charge, is used by its employees, to "anticipate and educate about possible security threats."

Amazon also said it will offer a free multi-factor authentication device to qualified Amazon Web Services customers. AWS users who have access to the AWS Management Console can authenticate themselves by typing in their passwords and touching the security token plugged into a computer's USB port. The device can be used across multiple AWS accounts and with other token-enabled applications, the company said.

Steve Schmidt, chief information security officer of AWS, said, "A fundamental problem when addressing current cybersecurity threats is education, which is why we're excited to share our Amazon Security Awareness training for free to help organizations and individuals understand how to navigate and fight against security events." He added, "And by giving qualified AWS customers access to free MFA tokens, we've made it even easier for companies to use this powerful tool to protect their data and important technology assets."

Write to Stephen Nakrosis at stephen.nakrosis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-25-21 1811ET