This is the last in a three-part blog series by Enterprise Management Associates discussing how vulnerability management can be expanded and simplified by using a cybersecurity asset management solution. In Part 1, we looked at how cybersecurity asset management can simplify vulnerability management and Part 2 highlighted how it helps improve an organization’s vulnerability management program. Part 3 of the series provides a brief summary and some perspectives on the benefits of a cybersecurity asset management solution as it relates to vulnerability management.
The value of cybersecurity asset management should be foundational, but it was only recently that the right set of technologies and business drivers converged to allow for cybersecurity asset management to be a part of vulnerability management — and thus greater cybersecurity and enterprise risk strategy.
Vulnerability management revolves around confidently knowing about any weaknesses in critical assets and that they’re managed appropriately. Sometimes that confidence is placed in the wrong tools and technologies — ones that are siloed or cannot see across the enterprise’s entire IT stack. Today, every enterprise needs a platform that can offer a comprehensive, real-time inventory and a correlation engine to normalize data across disparate systems, and produce a unified view of the status of every asset, how each asset complies with security policies, and automatically monitor the environment for changes, new vulnerabilities, and non-compliance.
Three Key Capabilities
A quality cybersecurity asset management solution will incorporate three key capabilities:
- The ability to aggregate asset data from any and all sources across environments (on-premises, cloud, hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, virtual): It’s likely that enterprises have myriad and disparate tools deployed that can identify assets in their environment. But few tools have visibility across environments and across layers, and can see the enterprise infrastructure in its entirety. Quality cybersecurity asset management solutions act as a data aggregator and provide visibility into assets regardless of the environment. They do this by ingesting data from all the management tools and sources connected, and by enhancing these sources with rich third-party information about vulnerabilities and policy violations.
- Assess assets based on specific environments, security policies, or standards: While knowing an asset exists is a great starting point, understanding the condition of that asset and how it interacts with other assets within the environment is critical. Differing environments will have differing controls and priorities, and application assets will likely be treated and maintained differently than network or server hardware. Still, all assets contribute to the overall vulnerability and risk assessment of the organization.
- Deep integration with existing security and IT management vendors: Most IT management and security tools have some integrations with other vendors, either through publicly available APIs or custom integrations. A good cybersecurity asset management solution will have deep integrations with most of the common management and allow users to bidirectionally inform third-party tools to automatically push alerts, update tickets, and update vulnerability assessments. That being said, today’s top cybersecurity asset management tools also allow users to enforce actions directly within the cybersecurity asset management tool versus forcing users to switch to another management console.
How Axonius Can Help
Axonius is the only cybersecurity asset management solution that completely addresses these capabilities to improve organizations’ vulnerability management programs. The Axonius solution automatically inventories, correlates, and normalizes asset data, providing a single view into every unique asset in every environment, and validates the security status of the asset based on existing standards or controls policies. Further, users can use the Enforcement Center to take more than 115 recommended or custom actions to prevent vulnerabilities from propagating and increasing enterprise risk.
As the leader in cybersecurity asset management, the Axonius solution:
- Provides comprehensive, always up-to-date visibility of all assets (devices, users, cloud, IoT, virtual, OT, SaaS applications, etc.) regardless of location, uptime, or power state
- Enables intuitive prebuilt and custom queries to continually surface coverage gaps, validate controls, and support cyber or audit investigations
- Uses out-of-the-box normalization, correlation, and deduplication for device and user data across all sources, giving stakeholders a single source of truth, allowing them to focus on vulnerability management and risk reduction
- Gives users a way to manage the security and compliance state of all assets within a single console (Enforcement Center) or push critical information to the integrated tools enterprises already use
