Asset Intelligence: Why ‘Know Your Asset’ Is the New KYC
When Know Your Customer (KYC) was introduced, its primary purpose was to combat financial crimes by ensuring banks and financial institutions understood the nature of their customers’ transactions and identities. This landmark move initially slowed organizations and their ability to onboard customers but greatly reduced the risk.
Today, organizations have similar issues with a lack understanding of their assets—both digital and physical. To protect against cyber threats, data breaches and operational disruptions, organizations should take a Know Your Asset (KYA) approach to security.
Here are three fundamental concepts from KYC that overlap with KYA:
- Verification: Just as financial institutions must verify customer identities, organizations must verify the identity, location and state of their assets.
- Ongoing Monitoring: Financial institutions have continuous monitoring of customer activities, KYA requires ongoing visibility of asset usage, status and compliance.
- Risk Profiling: KYC assigns risk profiles to customers based on their activities, while KYA assesses risks associated with each asset, factoring in vulnerabilities, exposure and business impact.
With KYA, organizations can mitigate risks by simultaneously understanding where their assets are and how they interact within the larger network ecosystem.
In our recent blog “Cybersecurity Asset Management: Asset Visibility Vs. Asset Intelligence”, we discussed how organizations need to move beyond asset visibility and into asset intelligence. Today we will dive into that asset intelligence and how knowing your assets can increase your security posture.
Asset Classification: The First Step in Knowing Your Assets
In KYC, customers are categorized based on risk and value, allowing cohorts to make decisions. Asset classification and identity is the foundational element of KYA. Without proper classification, it is impossible to effectively monitor and secure assets. Asset classification groups assets into categories based on their type, function or criticality to the business. Typical categories include:
- Managed Traditional Assets: These include servers, workstations, laptops, and other end user computers that can run standard Windows, Mac, Linux security tools.
- Unmanaged Assets: Devices that cannot run traditional agents, such as networking equipment, IoT, cyberphysical (OT and IoMT), and other sensor equipment.
- Human Assets: Employees and their access to systems and data should be considered in the asset landscape.
- Virtual Assets: Cloud-based resources, virtual machines and SaaS applications that are integral to operations.
Once classified, each asset must be assessed for its importance to the organization and the sensitivity of the data it processes or stores. For example:
- Critical Systems, like a payment processing platform or a customer database, would be categorized as high risk and high priority.
- Peripheral Assets, such as printers or non-networked devices, may be classified as low risk but still warrant attention from a security perspective.
Asset classification should not be a one-time exercise but a dynamic, ongoing process that adapts as assets evolve, change, or are added to the network. The goal is to ensure the most critical assets receive the highest level of protection and monitoring.
Go deeper: Learn how to master Zero Trust in The Five Essential Steps to Zero Trust Assurance Webinar
Understanding Business Criticality in Asset Intelligence
In KYA, understanding business criticality is key to determining which assets require the most stringent oversight. Not all assets are created equal, and knowing how each one contributes to the overall business function helps prioritize security measures and resource allocation.
Business criticality can be evaluated by asking:
- What is the asset’s role in day-to-day operations?
- What would happen if this asset were compromised, lost, or destroyed?
- How does the asset’s failure impact customers, revenue, or regulatory compliance?
For instance, a user’s machine may be critical to business, but glucose monitoring or manufacturing safety equipment are critical to the business and human life.
Network Communications in Asset Intelligence: Knowing How Assets Interact
One of the often-overlooked aspects of asset management is understanding how assets communicate with each other across the network. Knowing the communication patterns and data flows between assets is crucial for:
- Detecting Anomalies: Unusual traffic between assets could signal a security incident or a compromised system.
- Ensuring Compliance: Some regulations mandate that certain types of data should not leave specific environments or regions. Understanding network communications can help enforce those policies.
- Preventing Lateral Movement: If a malicious actor gains access to one asset, they may attempt to move laterally within the network to compromise more critical systems. Monitoring asset communications can help detect and block these movements.
KYA demands that organizations map out their network architecture and ensure that they have a real-time view of how assets interact. This is akin to the continuous monitoring aspect of KYC where customer behavior is tracked to detect suspicious activity.
Go deeper: Learn how data and insights from Forescout Research – Vedere Labs fuels our asset intelligence platform and solutions.
Asset Compliance: Aligning with Regulatory Requirements
In the same way that KYC ensures compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) laws and other financial regulations, KYA plays a crucial role in ensuring that organizations meet cybersecurity and data protection regulations.
Key regulatory frameworks that require strong asset management practices include:
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Requires organizations to protect personal data, making it essential to know where that data is stored and how it is used.
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS): Mandates that companies secure assets that process, store, or transmit credit card information.
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Encourages organizations to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from cyber threats, all of which rely heavily on asset management.
Compliance is not about avoiding fines or penalties. It is about maintaining trust with customers, partners, and stakeholders. Having a comprehensive KYA strategy ensures that the organization remains compliant by keeping track of where sensitive data resides, how it is being protected, and who has access to it.
Threats and Risk Factors: Identifying and Mitigating Vulnerabilities
A core element of KYA is understanding the threat landscape that could potentially target your assets. Just as KYC involves assessing the risk profile of a customer, KYA involves creating risk profiles for assets based on their vulnerabilities, exposure to threats, and their importance to the organization.
Common threats include:
- Cyber Attacks: Ransomware, phishing or zero-day exploits can target vulnerable systems.
- Insider Threats: Employees or contractors with access to critical assets may abuse their privileges intentionally or unintentionally.
- Physical Damage: Hardware assets may be vulnerable to damage from environmental factors, theft or tampering.
KYA involves proactive risk management by:
- Identifying Vulnerabilities: Using vulnerability scanning tools to discover weaknesses in software, hardware, or configurations.
- Implementing Safeguards: Applying security controls such as encryption, firewalls, and access management to mitigate risks.
- Monitoring Threats: Continuously monitoring the environment for new and emerging threats, similar to how ongoing KYC involves monitoring for suspicious customer behavior.
Embrace KYA for a More Secure Future
Know Your Asset is not just a cybersecurity best practice but a business imperative in today’s environment of escalating cyber threats, regulatory requirements, and operational complexities. Just as KYC became indispensable for financial institutions, KYA must become a core strategy for any organization that values security, compliance, and business continuity.
By focusing on asset classification, business criticality, network communications, compliance, and risk factors, organizations can ensure that they are not only protecting their data and systems but also safeguarding their reputation and trustworthiness in the marketplace.
See how the Forescout Platform uses KYA today.