What is cyber asset management?

Cyber asset management is the process of gaining full visibility into all the assets you have as well as to whom and what they are connected with. Cyber asset management involves identifying cyber assets across the enterprise, where these assets reside, who has access to them, and building context around these facts to make informed decisions to secure these assets and everything they may be connected to.

Traditionally, organizations managed their cyber assets by keeping records manually in static spreadsheets or employing tools like configuration management databases (CMDBs). These methods, while somewhat adequate at one point in time, are no longer viable today due to increased data volumes and business environment complexity.

What is a configuration management database?

Configuration management databases (CMDBs) are repositories that store information about an organization’s IT environment. These databases are specifically designed to house information about IT assets and configuration items (CIs). CMDBs are valuable tools that have a limited application to an organization’s broader cyber asset management needs.

What does a modern cyber asset management platform look like?

At the heart of an effective, modern cyber asset management solution is visibility. Building a complete, updated cyber asset inventory thanks to this visibility enables organizations to see and understand their asset footprint and attack surface to manage and protect it more effectively.

Building on this inventory, a cyber asset management platform includes robust reporting options in a centralized location. These reports can be used for many purposes, including governance, regulatory, and compliance (GRC) responses, critical asset evaluations, and more.

Finally, today’s solutions go beyond just providing visibility by surfacing relationships between assets that might otherwise be missed. By connecting the dots across cyber assets, organizations develop contextual insights that help them focus their efforts on the activities that matter most to their continued security.