IT Asset Management – It helps secure your environment and saves you money! - WST

We’re going to revisit something we sent out a few years back, because it’s good to periodically reinforce the (sometimes boring) fundamentals, such as asset management. Does your company keep a complete and up-to-date inventory of IT assets? If not, you may be wasting money and decreasing your overall IT security posture.

One of the most important aspects of managing your IT environment is knowing what you have. Inventory all IT assets: desktops, servers, printers, network attached cameras, routers, wireless access points, switches, firewalls – if it plugs into the network, inventory it. Use this list to make sure all assets are included in the controls you have in place, such as Active Directory, antivirus, DNS, patch and vulnerability management, and log management. These are all critical functions that depend on having a good inventory to work from, and a system that was missed because it wasn’t in the inventory increases the overall risk to your environment. Keep your inventory updated with scheduled periodic reviews, and as changes to your environment occur. Keep the inventory tidy by properly disposing assets once their lifecycle is complete.

From a financial perspective, poor inventory management could result in continuing to pay for licensing or maintenance on a system that was decommissioned years ago or leaving a long-gone system on the books. The finance folks just love it when that happens! (Protip: They do not love this.)

Proper IT asset management is a regulatory requirement in many industries, and scales well beyond these basics. Ensuring you have an accurate inventory is always the best starting point.

Authored by: David Matt, CISSP, CEH