ITAM and cyber security

Good cyber security needs reliable discovery and inventory systems, and those are the foundation of a good IT asset management (ITAM) solution. This page is for IT and security teams who want to see how asset inventory supports security controls.

The CIS Controls and ITAM

The Center for Internet Security (CIS) publishes a list of the controls that matter most for IT security. You can read the CIS Controls list on its site. Three of them relate directly to IT asset management.

Links between ITAM and IT security

• Inventory and control of hardware assets. Inventory, track and correct all hardware devices on the network.
• Inventory and control of software assets. Actively manage (inventory, track and correct) all software on the network so that only authorized software is installed.
• Incident response and management. Protect the organization’s information and its reputation by developing and implementing an incident response infrastructure. This is closely related to IT asset management.

Why ITAM is key to security

An ITAM system:

• discovers and locates IT assets
• shows how each asset relates to its usage
• records user and ownership details
• tracks non-compute hardware such as IoT devices, printers, scanners, routers and switches
• maps the software installed on each computer, server, desktop or laptop
• tracks the incidents linked to each IT asset

Rythium’s own product does this: read more about Euladox ITAM.