GFI Software has discovered that even many IT-focused organisations can’t accurately identify their most mission-critical assets.
Jozef Kacala, vice-president of pre-sales engineering at GFI Software, said in a webinar that they’d asked about data and information, with a view to which assets were most critical and in need of protection.
However, even resellers could not always pinpoint the most important tools.
“We know for certain that a lot of companies are not able to identify their business-critical, mission -critical assets,” Kacala said.
When you don’t know which IT assets to prioritise, that can make them harder to manage.
Also, Kacala suggested that often organisations don’t think about all the data and information that matters. They should think more about “what assets or data really are”.
When GFI asked resellers, they often listed their SQL databases, CRM solutions and so on, he added. At the same time they “totally ignored email, totally ignored documents that could be on drives”.
“But any data that is stolen from you or misused can have value,” Kacala pointed out.
“Email signatures can have all the information a hacker needs. We need to be more careful about who has access. Information and data includes literally everything you can find in a company.”
As a consequence, organisations could struggle to prevent cyber threats.
Across applications, services, cloud software and more, “not everything is equal” inside an organisation. Even when every asset is independently important, some will be more critical, depending on the organisation.
Which are your mission-critical assets or business-critical tools? This depends on multiple factors, including the type of business and its specific circumstances, and related timelines, Kacala said.
Kacala was presenting in a GFI Software webinar, here.
Tools to manage mission-critical assets
Additionally, GFI Software is working to ease pathways to technology implementation and management.
GFI tools include GFI AppManager, KerioConnect, KerioControl, MailEssentials, ClearView and LanGuard.
All organisations should be able to recognise and protect high-value assets on their network, Kacala noted.
For instance, GFI AppManager helps organisations manage multiple software products from one single screen. Features include capabilities around system metrics, statistics and performance.
OpenSDK will make capabilities increasingly extendable, according to the vendor.
While you can’t know exactly what cyberthreats will target your network, you do know their aims. Hackers typically intend to create damage and steal resources. So that suggests further cybersecurity focus, Kacala noted.
( Image by Innova Labs from Pixabay )
