ITAM: A Critical First Step in Every IT Security Program

You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. The top 5 Critical Security Controls of the Center for Internet Security’s highlight how crucial it is to know what devices you have and which software is running on them. The discovery of hard- and software data plays a critical role in maintaining an up-to-date synopsis of your entire IT estate. Leveraging that collected network data is a fundamental starting point for implementing security measures across your organization. With all this information at our fingertips, so much more can be done to ensure that organizations are not only running efficiently but also able to identify risks and opportunities that are not commonly related to IT Asset Management. You’re using discovery and inventory data to understand the number of deployed assets, software installations, and other asset-specific information. The IT security department is using data to assess security threats, vulnerabilities, and respond to security incidents. The thing they have in common: the need for complete visibility. Making ITAM a key process of your IT security efforts enables you to discover new devices as they come into the organization and inventory all software and hardware across your IT environment. Cases of ITAM supporting a response to a security threat include the WannaCry and Meltdown vulnerability exploits. Once identified, ITAM teams were able to query Lansweeper to find instances of vulnerable software using a custom report.

How Lansweeper Helps You Go Further

The first step in protecting anything is knowing that an asset exists. Sounds so simple, but a solid ITAM program requires reliable inventory and discovery as its foundation. Good IT security requires the same. Once you’ve established your asset inventory baseline, you can start to dig deeper.

Audit Antivirus

Is your Windows infrastructure protected against viruses? Identify if there are any Windows devices without anti-virus software and whether the anti-virus is up-to-date. Several built-in Lansweeper reports assist you in pinpointing possible vulnerabilities in your network.

Check Warranty Statuses

Check the warranty status for your Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Lenovo or Toshiba assets to make sure that your assets are still under coverage with the manufacturer. Quickly identify which assets are out of warranty by using our built-in reports.

Mitigate Local Admin Risks

The misuse of administrative privileges is a primary method for attackers to gain access into your organization. Granting local admin rights poses a threat to the health and well-being of your network. Lansweeper tells you which users have Local Administrative Rights on an asset-by-asset basis. Capture all the unauthorized administrators so that you can control who can manage your assets.

Detect Unauthorized Software

Is there any menacing software installed on your corporate workstations? Lansweeper enables you to mark identified software as authorized, unauthorized and neutral. Keeping track of unauthorized software installations is just one click away.

Report on Hard Drive Encryption

Data protection is often key in a business security policy. Lansweeper automatically scans if your drives are encrypted with BitLocker and if the prerequisites for enabling BitLocker are present. This allows you to get an overview of all the assets which have been encrypted or encrypted drives.

Leverage Event Log Scanning

Lansweeper’s event log scanning provides even more tools to secure your assets. By utilizing the wealth of information available in the Windows event log, you can keep an eye on anything, which might indicate a security risk. For example, a large number of failed logins can indicate a brute-force attack or someone trying to guess the password of one of your assets. There are several arguments why IT Asset Management and IT security should go hand in hand, but it all starts at with a reliable asset inventory. If you haven’t already, start your free trial of Lansweeper and build your ITAM system of record in no time.

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