Out of sight, out of control: How to overcome your IT & OT Asset Monitoring challenges

The surface that organisations expose to the external world on the internet has expanded significantly over the last few years. In addition to the continuously growing installed base of traditional IT devices and servers, much of the operational technology (OT) infrastructure in place to control manufacturing, critical infrastructure, and other physical aspects of the modern world is now online to allow it to be monitored and managed remotely. Additionally, there has been almost exponential growth in IoT and Industrial IoT (IIoT) devices deployed as sensors and edge computing processing units. ?

Unsurprisingly this proliferation of devices on the network has increased the complexity and burden on IT teams who have to manage and maintain the assets. The situation is worse than simply having a larger device landscape to manage. Most organisations don't have a complete picture of what devices are on their networks. ?

It's a well-known adage in the cybersecurity sector that you can't secure what you don't see. Out of sight, out of control as Armis phrases it. But just how bad is the problem? Armis, specialists in software to discover and catalogue all the devices on an organisation's network, sponsored a survey run by Computing UK to find out. The resulting Out of sight, out of control: How to overcome your IT and OT asset monitoring challenges report makes for grim reading. ?

You can download a copy of the PDF report to read for yourself from the Armis Resource page. We also outline some of the main findings later in this article, after we give a brief overview of how Armis solutions can ensure you know what's on your network. ?

?

The Armis Unified Visibility & Security Platform?

The Armis Unified Visibility & Security Platform enables organisations to discover every asset in their environment. The discovery mechanisms deliver 100% visibility and rich context that allows tracking of behaviours, threat detection, and actions to protect the business. ?

In addition to the visibility of all the devices in an environment, the Armis platform also provides:?

• A comprehensive cybersecurity management platform that uses the rich data collected to identify risk. All without agents needing to be deployed.?
• Device tracking and risk assessment on the tracked devices.??
• Premium threat intelligence using multiple industry-leading threat intelligence feeds to quickly discover anomalous activity and take actions to protect the environment.?

?

The Armis Unified Visibility & Security Platform solves the "you can't protect what you can't see" problem. See the Armis product information page for more details. ?

?

Connect with Armis Experts at Cyber Expo?

Experts from Armis will be attending Cyber Expo & Conference Ireland 2022. Armis will be present in the Expo Hall, where you can chat with them about their platform. They will also be part of the expert presentations and panel discussions within the OT Security and the Cyber in Healthcare Streams. The Cyber Expo & Conference Ireland is on the 28th of April 2022 in The Leopardstown Pavilion at Leopardstown Racecourse, and you can register to attend via this Eventbrite page.?

If you would like to chat with an expert about The Armis Unified Visibility & Security Platform outside of the Cyber Expo & Conference, then contact Renaissance.?

Renaissance and Armis are also attending Zero Day Con in Dublin on the 10th of March 2022. You can find more details of Zero Day Con at https://www.zerodaycon.com/.?

Read on for a summary of what the Out of sight, out of control: How to overcome your IT and OT asset monitoring challenges research report discovered.?

Key Survey Findings from the Report?

We won't repeat the survey findings in full here, just some of the key points. You should read the whole report. It's only 14 pages long and will be a good use of your time given the insights it'll provide about your organisation's knowledge of the devices in your environment. And the likely unknown attack surface that cybercriminals can exploit to disrupt your OT and other systems.?

The report on the survey carried out by Computing UK is based on 149 responses from decision-makers in organisations ranging in size from 1,000 to 10,000 staff. The respondents work in industries as diverse as education, manufacturing, government, banking, and oil and gas. Here are the key findings from the report:?

• Only 34% have an accurate and up-to-date Asset Management Database of all the IT, OT, IoT, IIoT, and mobile device assets they have.?
• Only 40% had identified all devices (including any OT devices) on their organisation's network. But only 27% keep this list of identified devices up to date in real-time.?
• Only a fifth of respondents (21%) have implemented unified visibility and control of all managed and unmanaged IT, OT, IoT, and IIoT devices within their infrastructure. This means that almost 80% have a disconnected view of their environments!?

There is a lot more detail in the report. But these three key findings might have you thinking about your organisation and the attack surface risks. For example, are there devices on your network that you don't know about that are running out of date software with vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to deploy ransomware, steal data, or disrupt your operations???

The Armis Unified Visibility & Security Platform will let you know.?

?