There is an ongoing debate as to whether asset management is the most important undertaking in enterprise cybersecurity or if it’s just a small but important piece of a much bigger risk reduction puzzle.
Proponents will argue that no organization can proactively protect against threats and manage vulnerabilities, and accelerate incident response, if it lacks unobstructed visibility into the exact number of applications and devices connected to, or trying to connect to, the corporate network(s) at any given point in time. Those less bullish on asset management as a silver bullet point to its inherent complexities and the immense challenges brought on by the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Despite the differing perspectives, there is almost universal agreement that asset management is a net positive to a company’s overall security posture. Perhaps that’s why so many government agencies — from the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and the Center for Internet Security (CIS) in the US to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSE) and the European Banking Authority abroad — rank asset management atop their cybersecurity preparedness…
