A security breach in your infrastructure doesn’t just mean monetary loss but the tarnished reputation incurred by having your clients’ information exposed. A breach in cyber security could have serious negative effects on the future growth of your business.
It may seem on the surface that IT Security and Software Asset Management (SAM) don’t have that much in common – but they do!
Your company’s IT security team is usually worried about detailed levels of information, such as ensuring all products have necessary security patches and that there are no tampered files that might contain malware. The software asset managers, on the other hand, will not usually be interested in such details and instead will be focused on determining the usage of specific software or software access rights, something that would be considered minute and trivial to someone from security.
For this reason, IT security often overlooks software asset management as a potential resource in eliminating exposure to cyberthreats.
At MetrixData360, we take the security of your data seriously and know that Software Asset Management can not only save you money but help keep your data safe with increased visibility of your software environment.
Software Asset Inventory Means Cyber Security Visibility
Few successful hackers would attempt to butt heads with the firewall of a company’s infrastructure. Their approach is usually more opportunistic, going after weak points in a company’s structure such as unapproved apps, unmanaged devices, and poor password protection, according to Microsoft’s article Minimize Cyber Security risk with Software Asset Management.
Not knowing what is in your software estate (having unaccounted devices whose usage and activities are not being tracked) gives hackers the opening into your infrastructure that they’re waiting for. However, accurate tracking of what you have in your software profile is one of the many services that Software Asset Management brings to the table.
With Software Asset Management inventory tools in place, you will be able to know what you are using and contrast that against what you’re paying for. Traditionally, this has been seen as a way to save money (and it is!). But it also adds visibility into your software estate, including the ability to match machine to user and location, which can prove vital information for the security of your software profile.
Software Updates, Security Patches, and General Software Health
Software Asset Management can help reduce your security vulnerability by making sure that the software you have installed in your estate is healthy and up to date.
According to IDC’s article The Business Value of Software Asset Management, cybercriminals will often take advantage of devices left exposed due to end-of-life IT systems and software that is no longer receiving product updates and security patches from their vendor sources.
Failure to keep software up-to-date can leave your devices exposed to hackers. However not every patch that a software vendor offers is provided as a free add-on to their software, and software asset management can help determine what you are at liberty to install and what you are not.
According to Deloitte’s article Minimizing the Threat Landscape Through Integration of Software Asset Management and Security, having strong software asset management in place will keep rogue malware from worming its way into your system. Formal requests may prevent but not completely eliminate the threat of such an event occurring.
Security tools need to be in place to control access, while SAM discovery tools can provide a deeper look into your software estate by evaluating what is installed in your software environment, including what employees might download from the Internet onto their work computers without the permission of the IT department. Software Asset Management can also give you the data to ensure that if you have deployed an anti-virus software, it has been deployed everywhere.
While both Security tools and SAM tools provide different types of data, each tool can provide valuable information to secure your infrastructure from outside attackers.
Saving Money and Cutting Damages Through Software Asset Management
According to Security’s article, 6 Ways Software Asset Management Can Help Minimize Security Risk, SAM’s main goal is to cut your spending with software, whether that is through knowing where you are liable to receive a software audit, or if it is areas where you are overspending by purchasing too much software compared to what you’re using.
By cutting extra waste, you allow your IT security team to manage a smaller software estate that is devoid of redundancies. Having a more organized software estate will mean that patch management can be conducted quickly and efficiently. According to Microsoft’s article Minimize Cybersecurity Risk with Software Asset Management, even in the event of a security breach, software asset management can help create a quick response to threats and ensure that your security system has an effective defense strategy against an attack by having an accurate picture of what is in your system.
According to Phara McLachlan, the collaboration between the IT security and software asset management teams can greatly improve the speed of your IT network. IT security has information that could help the SAM team do its job, such as standards and data on blacklist, software white lists, and a user’s last login information. Software asset management also has their own information that IT security can make use of, such as information on software installations, versions and editions, ownership, location, entitlement, assets and CIs.
How MetrixData360 Can Help Your Cyber Security
At MetrixData360, we understand the priority of cyber security when it comes to your data. Making sure that your software is clean of all threats could mean the difference between thriving in your industry and going down in history as the unfortunate victim in a hacker scandal.
The SAM Compass package provides you with an accurate licensing position and shows where you are overspending to optimize your software profile. It also gives you the ability to monitor your new applications and detect threats that enter your environment. If you’d like to learn more about whether SAM Compass is right for your company, click the link below to head over to our SAM Compass page.
