IT asset discovery: a complete guide

What is IT asset discovery?

Asset discovery is the process of identifying the systems that an organization has connected to its network, including on-premises computers, cloud-based infrastructure, mobile devices, and more. Organizations need to perform asset discovery to gain a better understanding of their cybersecurity risk, especially in a time where bring your own device (BYOD) policies and remote work have become common.

The importance of IT asset discovery for organizations

1. Comprehensive Visibility and Control

IT asset discovery provides a complete and accurate inventory of all assets connected to an organization's network, whether they are on-premises, in the cloud, or mobile. This visibility is crucial for several reasons:

• Network Management: Knowing what assets are on your network helps IT teams manage and optimize network performance and resources effectively.
• Resource Allocation: Accurate asset inventories enable better planning and allocation of resources, ensuring that all assets are utilized efficiently.
• Security Management: Identifying all assets helps in enforcing security policies and managing access controls across the organization.

2. Enhanced Security Posture

A comprehensive asset discovery process is foundational to an organization’s cybersecurity strategy. It helps in:

• Identifying Vulnerabilities: By cataloging all devices and systems, IT teams can identify potential vulnerabilities and ensure that they are patched and updated, reducing the risk of security breaches.
• Incident Response: In the event of a security incident, knowing the precise inventory of assets enables faster and more effective response and remediation.
• Compliance and Governance: Many regulatory frameworks require organizations to maintain an accurate inventory of their IT assets. Asset discovery helps meet these compliance requirements, avoiding penalties and ensuring data protection standards are met.

3. Risk Management and Reduction

Unmanaged or unknown devices pose significant risks to any organization. Asset discovery helps in mitigating these risks by:

• Eliminating Shadow IT: It identifies unauthorized devices or applications that employees might use without IT’s knowledge, which can be potential entry points for cyber threats.
• Improving Endpoint Security: With a clear view of all endpoints, IT teams can implement stronger security measures, such as encryption and endpoint protection solutions, to safeguard sensitive data.
• Assessing and Reducing Cyber Risk: By understanding the complete scope of IT assets, organizations can better assess their cyber risk exposure and take proactive measures to reduce it.

4. Facilitating IT Operations and Support

Effective IT asset discovery simplifies IT operations and support by:

• Streamlining IT Processes: Automated discovery tools can significantly reduce the time and effort required to keep track of assets, allowing IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Improving IT Support: With accurate and up-to-date asset information, IT support teams can diagnose and resolve issues more quickly and efficiently, leading to reduced downtime and improved productivity.
• Supporting Asset Lifecycle Management: Knowing the status and location of all assets helps in managing their lifecycle from procurement to retirement, ensuring assets are maintained properly and replaced timely.

5. Enabling Digital Transformation and Innovation

In an era where digital transformation is a priority, IT asset discovery plays a crucial role by:

• Supporting Innovation: Comprehensive knowledge of IT assets allows organizations to leverage existing technologies and identify areas for innovation and improvement.
• Facilitating Cloud Migration: Understanding the inventory of on-premises assets can aid in planning and executing cloud migration strategies, ensuring a smooth transition and integration with cloud-based services.
• Driving Cost Efficiency: By providing insights into asset utilization and performance, discovery processes can help in optimizing IT spending and reducing costs associated with unused or underutilized assets.
  

How does IT asset discovery work?

IT asset discovery is a systematic process that involves identifying, cataloging, and monitoring all the assets connected to an organization's network. This process ensures that every device, system, and piece of software is accounted for, providing a comprehensive view of the IT environment. Here’s a step-by-step overview of how IT asset discovery works:

1. Network Scanning

The first step in IT asset discovery is scanning the network to detect all connected devices and systems. This is typically done using automated tools that employ various methods to explore the network, including:

• IP Address Scanning: Tools scan IP ranges to discover devices that are assigned an IP address. This method helps in identifying all the active devices on the network, including computers, servers, and IoT devices.
• Port Scanning: Scanning open ports on discovered devices to identify the types of services or applications running on them. This helps in understanding the functionality and role of each device within the network.
• Protocol Analysis: Using protocols such as SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), SSH, or WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) to gather detailed information about each asset, such as its configuration, status, and capabilities.

2. Device Identification and Classification

Once devices are detected, the next step is to identify and classify them. This involves:

• Fingerprinting Devices: Tools use techniques like OS fingerprinting to determine the operating system and software running on each device. This helps in categorizing devices into types such as desktops, laptops, servers, network equipment, and more.
• Gathering Detailed Attributes: Collecting additional details about each device, such as hardware specifications, installed software, and network configurations. This provides a comprehensive profile for each asset.

3. Inventory Management

After identification, the information about each asset is compiled into an inventory database. This step includes:

• Centralized Asset Repository: All discovered assets are documented in a centralized database or asset management system. This repository serves as a single source of truth for all IT assets within the organization.
• Regular Updates: The inventory is continuously updated to reflect changes in the network, such as new devices being added, existing devices being decommissioned, or software updates being applied.

4. Continuous Monitoring and Reporting

IT asset discovery doesn’t end with a one-time scan; it involves ongoing monitoring and reporting to ensure the asset inventory remains accurate and up-to-date. This includes:

• Real-Time Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of the network to detect any new or removed devices, ensuring that the inventory reflects the current state of the network.
• Alerts and Notifications: Setting up alerts for unauthorized devices or changes to the asset configurations that could pose security risks.
• Regular Reporting: Generating reports that provide insights into asset utilization, compliance status, and potential vulnerabilities. These reports are crucial for IT management and decision-making.

5. Integration with Other IT Systems

IT asset discovery tools often integrate with other IT management and security systems to provide a holistic view of the IT environment. This includes:

• Integration with CMDBs (Configuration Management Databases): Synchronizing asset data with CMDBs to support IT service management (ITSM) processes.
• Security Tools Integration: Sharing asset information with security tools like SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) systems to enhance threat detection and response capabilities.
• Software Management Systems: Coordinating with software management tools to track software usage, compliance, and licensing.

Use cases of asset discovery

The goal of asset discovery is to provide an organization with a complete inventory of the IT assets connected to its network. The organization can benefit from this asset listing in various different ways, including:

• Managing IT Inventories: An organization’s IT assets, both hardware and software, represent a significant investment by the company.  A complete listing of these assets and their current status enables the organization to better manage these assets and maximize the impact of its investments.
  

• Network Visualization: With full knowledge of its IT assets, an organization can generate visualizations of parts of all of its network.  These visualizations can then be used to make data-driven decisions, such as how to optimize an organization’s existing network infrastructure based on the assets connected to the network and how they interact.

• IT Automation: Some processes, like applying software updates, need to be performed for a large subset of an organization’s assets within a tight window.  With a complete asset inventory, the company can automate the process of identifying which assets need a particular update and pushing the update to them, saving time and money.

• Patch Management: Software vulnerabilities are publicly reported and patched on a daily basis, and cybercriminals move rapidly to exploit newly published vulnerabilities.  The process automation enabled by a complete asset inventory can help an organization to perform software security detection, stay on top of its patching, and manage its cyber risk.

• License Management: License management is important but complex as an organization may have hundreds or thousands of licenses on different renewal schedules.  With asset discovery, an organization can determine its exact licensing needs and eliminate the risks associated with the use of unlicensed software.

• Streamlined Issue Tracking: IT support staff need to manage many different types of devices.  With asset discovery, information about these assets and their needs is centrally tracked and stored, simplifying the asset management process.

• Simplified Reporting: An organization may be subject to a number of different data protection regulations and other requirements.  Asset discovering enables an organization to more easily generate the reports needed to demonstrate.

• Cost Savings: A comprehensive IT asset inventory enables an organization to identify what software and hardware it has and what is and isn’t being used.  This helps to ensure that the company doesn’t purchase software that it doesn’t need and to cancel licenses that aren’t being used.  By eliminating waste and optimizing an organization’s existing investments, an organization can make significant cost savings.

A complete asset inventory provides an organization with deep visibility into its IT assets. This visibility is vital to an organization’s efforts to manage these assets and make informed decisions about its IT infrastructure.

Differences between active and passive asset discovery

IT asset discovery can be approached using two primary methods: active and passive. Each method has its unique characteristics, advantages, and use cases.

Active asset discovery

Active asset discovery involves directly probing and interacting with network devices to gather detailed information about them. This method uses active network scanning techniques to detect and identify assets. Key features of active asset discovery include:

• Network Probing: Active discovery tools send requests or probes to devices on the network. This interaction can include ping sweeps, port scans, or protocol queries (e.g., SNMP, WMI) to elicit responses that reveal device details.
• Detailed Information Gathering: Because active discovery involves querying devices directly, it often provides more comprehensive and detailed information, including device type, operating system, running services, and hardware configurations.
• Scheduled or On-Demand Scans: Active discovery can be performed on a scheduled basis (e.g., daily or weekly) or on-demand to provide up-to-date asset information whenever needed.
• Potential Network Load: The probing nature of active discovery can generate network traffic, which might be noticeable in large or sensitive networks. It's crucial to manage scan intervals and intensity to avoid performance impacts.

Use Cases:

• Initial Asset Inventory: Active discovery is ideal for establishing a thorough initial inventory of all assets on the network.
• Comprehensive Security Audits: It is useful for in-depth security audits where detailed information about each device is required.

Passive asset discovery

Passive asset discovery, on the other hand, involves monitoring network traffic to identify assets without directly probing them. This method listens to the communication between devices on the network to detect and gather information about them. Key features of passive asset discovery include:

• Network Traffic Monitoring: Passive discovery tools capture and analyze packets of data as they travel across the network. This can include examining IP addresses, MAC addresses, and protocols to identify devices and their interactions.
• Non-Intrusive: Since passive discovery does not actively query devices, it does not generate additional network traffic. This makes it less intrusive and ideal for environments where minimal disruption is critical.
• Continuous Visibility: Passive methods provide ongoing, real-time visibility into the network, making it easier to detect new devices as soon as they connect or changes in device behavior.
• Limited Detailed Information: While passive discovery excels in identifying the presence of devices and their network roles, it may not capture detailed device attributes without additional data sources.

Use Cases:

• Low-Impact Monitoring: Passive discovery is suitable for environments where network performance and stability are paramount, and where continuous monitoring is needed without generating extra traffic.
• Dynamic Environments: It is ideal for monitoring dynamic networks where devices frequently connect and disconnect, such as in BYOD or IoT-heavy environments.

A complete listing of an organization’s assets can be invaluable for IT management, security, governance, and regulatory compliance. Asset discovery tools can enable an organization to generate these inventories and maintain consistent visibility into its IT assets.

Prey provides asset discovery functionality alongside a number of device management features. This enables an organization to not only track its IT assets but to take action to manage its cyber risk and the threat of data compromise if a device is lost, stolen, or otherwise placed at risk.