Cyber Defense eMagazine May 2019

4. Cloud and Speed: Companies that prioritize speed and convenience over adhering to security
best practices to ensure all of their cloud instances are covered will be prime targets for costly
data breaches.
So how can these types of organizations best shore up their security postures?
If you can identify with any of the above characteristics, the best course of action is to identify weaknesses
and address the security fundamentals. Here are a few steps:
1. Understand What Assets You Have
You can only secure what you can see, and until you know which assets are in your environment, it’s
impossible to know whether those devices are satisfactorily secure. Understanding your inventory of
laptops, desktops, servers, VMs, mobile devices, IoT devices, and cloud instances sounds simple, but
organizations have a remarkably difficult time doing this. The first step should be establishing an ongoing
device discovery, classification and inventory process to help you keep track.
2. Distinguish Between Managed and Unmanaged Assets
In any environment, assets can be split into two distinct categories: known/managed and
unknown/unmanaged. Managed assets are known to security management systems (think endpoint
agents and Active Directory.) Meanwhile, unmanaged devices may be known to the network, but do not
have any security solutions installed so you aren’t able to access its risk profile. Both types of devices
are important but should be treated differently.
For example, a smart TV in a conference room is different from the CEO’s laptop. While the Smart TV
doesn’t need an endpoint security solution or isn’t part of a patch schedule, the laptop does. Creating a
process to identify and take action based on asset classification is critical.
3. Address the Gaps in Security
Every organization has devices that are missing security solution coverage, whether it’s iPhones without
Mobile Device Management, or AWS instances not known to a VA scanner. Addressing these gaps in
an ongoing basis is necessary, especially given the dynamic and elastic nature of these assets.
By following through on Steps 1 and 2, you’ll be in a position to know all of the assets and their type in
your environment, making it easier to identify where security holes are and how to best close those gaps.
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