Skip to content

Asset Inventory

Asset inventory serves as a potent tool for security teams, enabling them to navigate through the diverse array of IT components within a company and pinpoint vulnerable areas in the system.

While the concept of asset inventory may appear straightforward, its execution is far from simple. Maintaining an accurate and up-to-date inventory demands considerable effort and time investment. It's an ongoing process that requires automations to ensure efficiency and reliability. Various tools are available for managing different types of assets, including hardware and network components. Opting for a unified solution capable of managing all asset types in a centralized platform is advisable. Although this might end up with custom development for data importing, the long-term benefits can outweigh the initial investment.

Integration with project management and service management tools enhances asset management capabilities. This integration streamlines the creation of tickets and tasks associated with assets, facilitating the tracking of asset status and lifecycle. Imagine an asset inventory including everything from employee records to external tools used, along with their corresponding permissions. By raising a ticket for permissions request within the service management tool, employees can specify the system and required permissions, streamlining the process and allowing the automation of permission granting. This further simplifies searchs and audits, ensuring efficient management of assets throughout their lifecycle.

Outcome

  • Implement a platform for asset management
  • Create/Configure automations to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the inventory.
  • Employees are included
  • Systems and tools are included
  • Permissions are included
  • Cloud services are included
  • Cloud components are included
  • Network components are included
  • Hardware components are included
  • Licenses are included
  • Service providers are included
  • Internal projects are included
  • Risk classification is done for relevant assets
  • Teams are included
  • Integrate asset management with project management and service management tools
  • Include systems criticality classification in the asset inventory

Metrics

  • Count of assets in the inventory per type
  • Percentage of asset types with automated data collection
  • Number of missing asset types

Tools & Resources

Further Reading