Asset security is one of the foundations of cybersecurity: knowing what you own, and managing and protecting it properly. With regular security assessments and testing, organizations can defend their network assets against changing threats and manage risk with confidence.
This article explains the role of asset security testing in a strong security program, how it helps prevent data breaches and the other benefits it brings, and why it should be near the top of every organization’s list.
Why asset security testing matters
Asset management is central to cybersecurity, for financial institutions and for organizations in every sector. It means identifying, tracking and managing every asset on your network so it stays secure and compliant. It breaks down into three parts.
Risk assessment and management. Good asset management makes risk assessment possible: you can find vulnerabilities and put access controls on the assets that matter. It also supports incident response and regulatory compliance.
IT asset management (ITAM). ITAM gives you real-time insight into your assets, which helps with vulnerability management, compliance work and incident response. It keeps your asset inventory up to date and aligned with security standards such as the CIS Critical Security Controls, HIPAA and PCI DSS.
Asset inventories. An accurate, current inventory lets you match your assets to your business objectives and risk strategy, and makes it possible to track, audit and assess them. Scale is often overlooked: as a company grows, keeping the inventory organized gets harder, but it is essential for managing risk.
Asset testing gives you a solid security framework: a full account of your assets, the vulnerabilities in them and how to fix them, and evidence that you meet your compliance obligations.
The benefits of cybersecurity asset management
Organizations around the world spend 10 to 12% of their IT budgets on cybersecurity, and cybersecurity asset management (CSAM) is a large part of protecting what that money buys. Its benefits:
Real-time visibility and control. CSAM tools bring asset data together in one dashboard, so you can make quick, informed decisions. With the full picture, you can spot threats before they escalate and find unpatched vulnerabilities and malicious activity quickly.
Better compliance and security. By checking assets against your environment and security standards, CSAM shows you your inventory, configuration and compliance status. It also helps you find end-of-life IT assets and dispose of them securely.
Proactive incident management and lower costs. CSAM lets you prioritize incident management by risk and return, so IT teams focus on protecting the most important assets. Resources go where they do the most good.
Built into your security plan, CSAM improves compliance, visibility, incident response and how you spend your resources.
Preventing data breaches through asset security testing
Preventing data breaches takes a proactive approach, starting with knowing which assets matter most. Penetration testing, compliance audits and strategic security advice all help organizations find vulnerabilities, meet security standards and strengthen their defenses. A network penetration test, for example, often turns up forgotten hosts and services that are missing from the inventory altogether.
Key steps in asset testing to prevent breaches
- Assess risk against your own needs. Generic risk assessments often ignore your business context. Focus on the vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and security issues specific to your organization.
- Rank assets by importance.
- Focus on your organization: rank assets by how important they are to you, not by how important that type of asset is in general.
- Use several factors: consider a range of factors to judge each asset’s importance accurately.
- Keep full visibility: an up-to-date view of your attack surface keeps the ranking accurate.
- Accept that prioritizing is hard. A large, complex attack surface makes it difficult to decide what to fix first. The importance ranking tells you where to direct remediation.
Testing and prioritizing assets this way greatly reduces the risk of a data breach and the operational, financial and reputational damage that comes with one. IBM has a useful explainer on what a data breach is.
Conclusion
The stakes are high. Rigorous asset testing strengthens your defenses, keeps you compliant and makes incident management more efficient. Organizations that put cybersecurity asset management first protect themselves better, use their resources more efficiently and save money, which makes asset testing a business decision as well as a security one.
Threats keep changing, so stay proactive about the vulnerabilities in your critical assets. To find out what an attacker could reach on your network, contact us about a penetration test. Asset security is about preventing data breaches today and protecting the organization’s future.
FAQs
How do you work out which assets matter most to an organization?
Start by identifying the key business functions that depend on your assets, such as production, supply chain, customer service and finance. That shows which assets carry the most business risk.
Why prioritize assets and their risks?
Prioritizing produces a ranking of risks from most to least critical. That ranking is the basis for spending resources where they best support the organization’s mission and business needs.
How does asset security help the organization as a whole?
Asset security is at the core of a security program. It strengthens your overall defenses and lets you reduce risk so operations are not disrupted.
Why identify assets during a risk assessment?
Identifying IT assets is a fundamental step in any cybersecurity risk assessment. An asset register shows which assets are valuable and who is responsible for protecting each one.