New Report Spotlights Gaps in Security Asset Management Impacting Enterprise Security Programs

Nearly 30% of Assets are Unknown, Resulting in Mismanagement and Poor Security Hygiene

Sevco Security, the cloud-native security asset management platform for enterprises that require an accurate IT inventory, today published a new report exploring the gap between perceptions and realities of security hygiene and asset management. Leveraging findings from ESG’s “Security Hygiene and Posture Management Survey,” Sevco’s “Security Hygiene and Asset Management: Perception Versus Reality” report addresses five unfounded perceptions that many security teams assume to be true and the realities that unveil alarming security risks.

The report reveals that the perception of good security hygiene often lead to gaps in asset inventory that leave organizations open to security incidents. One such gap is the assumption that organizations have an accurate understanding of asset inventory. The reality is that on average, organizations discover 20-30% previously unknown devices once various inventory sources have been analyzed and reconciled. In order to truly have a grasp on asset inventory, security teams must prioritize the difficult task of correlating various data sources to arrive at an accurate picture of the complete asset inventory.

“The responsibilities of today’s security professionals are complex and ever changing,” said J.J. Guy, co-founder and CEO, Sevco. “However, it is impossible to secure what you cannot see. With recent findings from ESG exposing wide gaps in asset inventory, the Sevco team felt it was important to dig a bit deeper and uncover why these gaps are happening. We discovered that many IT and security teams have an unrealistic perception of good security hygiene.”

Using the data from ESG’s survey of 400 IT and security professionals as a starting point for its own research, Sevco found additional misalignments in IT inventory priorities, many of which have been an ongoing challenge for security teams. If left unaddressed, these gaps can transform into serious vulnerabilities and areas for increased security risk. 

Key recommendations stemming from Sevco’s findings in the “Security Hygiene and Asset Management: Perception versus Reality” report include: 

• As a foundation of any security program, assign clear ownership of asset inventory. Many issues involving inventorying assets stem from siloed ownership of tools to source inventory data without clear owners and alignment of inventory efforts.
• Change asset inventory processes to make it continuous, not monthly. In the highly dynamic IT environments of today assessing inventory once a week, much less once a month, is a considerable exposure.  
• Without a consistent and continuous correlation process, IT organizations are likely underestimating its total asset inventory by 20-30%. Poor grasp of asset inventory undermines what may be outstanding efforts, such as a vulnerability management program.

To read the full “Security Hygiene and Asset Management: Perception versus Reality” report, please visit: https://content.sevcosecurity.com/technical-brief-asset-correlation-engine-ace-0

About Sevco Security

Sevco Security is the cloud-native security asset management platform for enterprises that require an accurate IT inventory. Its patented telemetry technology creates a unified inventory that is updated continuously to deliver real-time asset intelligence and help security and IT teams identify and close their previously unknown security gaps. Founded in 2020 and based in Austin, Texas, Sevco is backed by SYN Ventures, .406 Ventures, Accomplice and Bill Wood Ventures. For more information, visit https://sevcosecurity.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @SevcoSecurity.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211110006021/en/