Why is An Accurate Asset Inventory Important?

Regardless of size, enterprises are struggling with the daunting task of vulnerability risk management. They don’t have enough time or people power to address every issue that gets identified. To truly manage vulnerabilities and not play Whack-A-Mole with scan findings, you need to trust your asset management, understand how your vulnerabilities fit into the context of your business, and be able to analyze the paths attackers might take in that context.

You Can’t Secure What You Can’t See

For security and risk management professionals, it’s critical to have access to a reliable and accurate asset inventory especially when trying to investigate security incidents or to demonstrate compliance. Risk numbers, visualizations and data metrics are only as good as the data driving them. If the data underneath is incomplete or suspect, the information gathered can only be trusted to a certain extent, if at all. Having a comprehensive, accurate and continuously updated list of assets and understanding how they interconnect is important for any company, but it is essential for vulnerability management teams, especially for those using the recommended risk-based approach. Without seeing how elements of your network interact, it will be impossible to execute a strategy to identify and remediate vulnerabilities, thereby leaving you exposed to an attack.

Building a Strong Security Foundation

Get your foundation right first. It’s not only just a principle, the data speaks volumes as to how effective it could be to improving your organization’s security posture.

NorthStar creates the foundation for an aggregated, ground-up view of all the assets in your environment. It taps into not one or two data sources, but intelligently pulls data from your existing sources across multiple platforms-assembling all the facts you need to make informed decisions into a single, easy-to-configure dashboard.

It collects asset information from a variety of data sources and ranks the accuracy of each source based on confidence and aging. That information is then pulled into SuperLists, providing an accurate and comprehensive view of every asset. These SuperLists prove invaluable when determining your next steps or preparing for risk-based PCI or HIPAA compliance audits. Since NorthStar collects and analyzes data from many sources, it inherently tells you where you are missing security tools.

NorthStar doesn’t just capture data; it also transforms it into actionable insights.

Ready to improve the quality of your data? Contact us for a free demo.