Let's consider hardware and software inventory in this video.
And maintaining an update and accurate inventory,
that's a key part of asset management in a cybersecurity strategy.
After all, without having a clear inventory
of our hardware and software,
we're sort of flying blind in terms of security.
So maintaining visibility into every piece of equipment, every operating system,
every application,
that's going to help ensure that vulnerabilities
don't slip through the cracks.
And having updated and accurate inventory also helps us demonstrate compliance
during audits, whether those audits are internal or external.
And hardware inventory, that's the foundation of asset management,
and it involves cataloging every physical device
within our organization's environment.
This includes routers, switches, laptops, mobile phones,
pretty much everything, even IoT devices,
Internet of Things devices like security cameras and smart sensors.
They all fall under this category of hardware inventory.
And we can collect hardware inventory in several different ways.
One way is manually.
Manually going to every device and documenting those details.
And I used to have to do that when I worked at a local university,
and it might work well for smaller networks, but it does not scale well.
In larger environments,
we might want to use a tool like Nmap or a dedicated asset management platform
like Cisco's AI Endpoint Analytics. Those can help automate the process.
Specifically, these tools can periodically scan
our network and update our inventory device
list, so we always know what's out there.
And once you've documented your hardware,
the next step is to identify what software is running on those systems.
And this includes operating systems, productivity suites, custom applications;
everything needs to be accounted for.
And tracking software versions and license expirations,
that's going to be super important for staying compliant and secure.
And to inventory our software,
one option is to use an agent-based solution.
For example, Microsoft has one called
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager or Tanium.
That's another popular option.
And these tools can install a small agent on each endpoint,
and these agents report back the software details of what's running
on that endpoint.
Another approach is to use an agentless scanning tool.
These tools can interrogate systems remotely
and gather software information that way.
And for smaller or specialized environments,
we might even turn to a command-line tool to quickly
see what's installed on a system.
For example, on Microsoft Windows,
we can issue the command like you see here on screen,
wmic space product space get space name comma version.
And that's going to list the installed applications
on this Microsoft Windows machine.
And please keep in mind that a one-time inventory,
it might be accurate today, but not tomorrow.
Regularly updating our inventory,
preferably through some automated process,
that can help keep our inventory fresh.
And if we integrate the inventory process with patch management,
that's going to help make sure that any newly discovered system or application
is going to be patched quickly.