The security implications of a constantly expanding array of devices, users, software, SaaS applications, and cloud services are substantial. The rapid pace of change makes manually finding, managing, and securing all these assets not only tedious but also error-prone and wasteful of scarce resources. Without complete visibility, IT and security teams face security gaps, misconfigurations, missing or malfunctioning agents, and more.

Fortunately, asset management solutions have evolved to address the complexities of overseeing security aspects in asset configuration over the years.

What does cybersecurity asset management entail?

To tackle security issues, it's crucial to identify gaps. This requires a comprehensive and reliable inventory of assets. Cybersecurity asset management involves:

• Acquiring a thorough inventory of assets, their relationships, and business-level context
• Identifying security gaps, evaluating vulnerabilities, optimizing costs, and prioritizing risks
• Automatically enforcing policies, streamlining actions, and simplifying workflows across departments and systems

Asset management forms a foundational part of cybersecurity programs, with the CIS Critical Controls emphasizing the importance of inventorying and controlling hardware and software assets as the first two security measures. Similarly, asset management is the primary category in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and recent federal guidance from the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) cybersecurity memorandum M-24-04 highlights that "agencies must have a clear understanding of the devices connected within their information systems to gauge cybersecurity risk to their missions and operations."

Implementing a reliable, timely, and efficient cybersecurity asset management process remains a significant challenge in our industry.

Consequences of poor cybersecurity asset management

Inadequate cybersecurity asset management practices significantly increase the likelihood of threat actors achieving their objectives, whether it's stealing sensitive data, disrupting business operations, or posing other risks to the organisation.

An attacker often exploits overlooked entry points like unnoticed servers, laptops lacking antivirus software, applications missing patches, open ports, or unsecured user accounts. Efficiently and consistently addressing such risks requires robust asset management practices.

Furthermore, poor asset management practices introduce financial risks. Without a clear understanding of the existing environment and its access, determining the extent of yearly spending wasted on redundant tools or unused software licenses becomes challenging.

As more companies transition to remote and hybrid work setups, spending on SaaS apps rises. In the absence of adequate visibility into shadow SaaS, organisations may allocate their budget inefficiently towards redundant apps, unnecessary user licenses, and inactive or orphaned user accounts.

If asset management is crucial for cybersecurity, why haven't all enterprises adopted it?

Similarly to the challenges faced in other areas, such as daily exercise for better health, cybersecurity essentials like asset management are often overlooked. While exciting disciplines like threat hunting or red-teaming attract attention, building a strong security program foundation is essential, even though it may seem less glamorous.

Another obstacle to effective asset management is the lack of efficient tools. Manual and error-prone tracking of IT resources consumes time and yields minimal benefits. For asset management to reach its full potential, automation and easy implementation are necessary.

Benefits of cybersecurity asset management

Security leaders who implement effective asset management not only enhance their organization's security but also improve efficiency, track progress, and prevent potential issues from escalating.

Organizations that keep pace with today's dynamic environments through effective asset management find that various IT, cybersecurity, and GRC groups rely on the asset management system for insights on vulnerabilities, threats, incidents, compliance, troubleshooting, and more. The once overlooked asset management system becomes central to critical decisions and investigations.

Moreover, cybersecurity asset management solutions can help reduce the financial burden on digital infrastructure during uncertain economic times. These solutions can identify inefficiencies like untapped, forgotten, or overlapping infrastructure, offering insights on the usage of individual tools.

Approaching cybersecurity asset management

The good news is that today's enterprises already possess numerous IT and security systems that hold information about some assets within the organization. These include:

• Identity and systems management tools
• Endpoint security management software
• Vulnerability scanning tools
• Passive and active network monitoring solutions
• Cloud orchestration technologies

However, the challenge lies in these systems existing as data silos, requiring significant effort to obtain a unified and actionable view of asset details across multiple systems. Organisations can enhance their asset management program by extracting valuable configuration and other data from these systems, followed by cleaning the data to extract useful information from multiple sources.

Peritus Asset Management Assessment

Achieving this goal requires a significant amount of automation and expertise. This is where Peritus Asset Management Assessment comes in.

Get a complete asset inventory so you can uncover security gaps, enforce policies, and gain confidence in your security posture.

The assessment helps you:

• Gain visibility into all assets in your environment across cloud, physical, and virtual devices
• See where protections are missing and where vulnerabilities exist
• Reduce time and cost associated with manual asset collection and alert triage time

The Assessment :

• One of our expert engineers will be deployed to run the assessment in your environment.
• We will work with you to ensure the assessment is being deployed correctly ensuring the correct data is collected.
• You will receive a comprehensive report including an executive summary of findings and priorities, current security maturity, full details of gaps in your security posture, along with vendor agnostic recommendations on how to fill them.
• Follow up call(s) with your allocated expert engineer to discuss the findings, discuss the prioritised action plan and answer any queries.

Visit our website for more information.

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