Adopting a Zero Trust Strategy? Start With Asset Management for Cybersecurity

Zero Trust has come a long way from being a buzzword to becoming a business imperative.

The evolving threat landscape isn’t the only reason interest in Zero Trust has spiked, though. The biggest driver for the adoption of a Zero Trust strategy has been the changes in the way we work — a shift induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In fact, our latest research shows the number of remote workers has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic. Respondents said 58% of their workforce are currently remote, compared to only 23% before the pandemic.

Remote work has led to relaxed BYOD policies and increased endpoints accessing an organization’s data. Increase in device diversity has also led IT and security teams to put more focus on their identity and access management strategy.

Plus, accelerated digital transformation, the rapid adoption of a cloud-first approach, and proliferation of IoT devices have all led security-minded organizations to realize a perimeter-based security approach no longer works.

What’s more, Zero Trust is now a mandate for federal agencies. 

Asset Management for Cybersecurity: Your First Step to Zero Trust

As network infrastructure becomes more complex and data security becomes a business imperative, adopting a Zero Trust strategy can help organizations effectively secure devices, apps, users, and data — regardless of location.

In our latest white paper, The First Step to Zero Trust: Asset Management for Cybersecurity, we explore why a good understanding of the devices in your environment is the first step in your Zero Trust journey. 

Visibility is a key principle of the Zero Trust security model. And, implementation of a Zero Trust strategy often begins with figuring out what you’re trying to protect (assets, data, apps, and services). 

That’s because you can’t protect what you can’t see or understand. 

In fact, in our Zero Trust episode of The Great Debate webinar series, speaker Craig Goodwin of Cyvatar.ai hinted at the importance of figuring out the basics like asset management before embarking on a Zero Trust journey.

Here are some other steps to follow when implementing a Zero Trust strategy:

• Distinguish between managed and unmanaged devices 
• Discover and address gaps in security solution coverage
• Ensure proper access rights by establishing ongoing user access auditing
• Implement security policy validation to ensure nothing is being missed

A cybersecurity asset management platform provides a unified view of all your assets, users, vulnerabilities, and more. It provides you with much-needed visibility in today’s complex IT environment, and helps you along your Zero Trust journey by:

• Connecting to your existing security and IT management solutions via adapters, and then collecting and correlating information about assets to create a comprehensive view of all devices in your environment
• Identifying unmanaged devices so you can distinguish between devices that should and shouldn’t be managed
• Helping you understand which devices are missing security solution coverage, so necessary actions can be taken
• Creating alerts to notify staff or other solutions when something deviates from the security policy
• Helping extract additional contextual information about devices and users

Learn more about why asset management for cybersecurity is the first step in your Zero Trust journey. Read our white paper for a deep dive into the technologies associated with Zero Trust, essential steps for a successful implementation, and how Axonius can help.