8/13/2007

Preventing theft and loss of IT assets

Theft and loss of IT equipment is much more than a cost of replacement burden to the organization. Unencrypted data on lost laptops adds privacy issues and identity theft concerns, adding legal and public relations concerns. Hard working security teams struggle to reduce the risk of loss while executive management are side-tracked from running the business to deal with the consequences of the losses. IT asset management best practices such as asset identification and tracking, life cycle management, contract management and compliance management greatly reduce the risk of these serious consequences. With an accurate identification and reporting of hardware and software, multi-tasking IT staff can capture what is going on in the environment currently, what it should be and take the next step to analyze the effectiveness of the processes and controls to secure the environment. Attempting to make changes based on an incomplete pciture of the environment is risky at best. Organizations need to look at automation that covers a broad spectrum of platforms and that has a solid set of tools for extracting information. Lifecycle management, the ability to build processes that govern the use and movement of assets through their term of use, delivers vital data to security efforts. Opportunities for security breaches can arise through the chaotic and constant movement of assets, losing track of what is in the environment and where. Lifecycle management is the best defense against such occurences. The initial impetus to purchase an automated lifecycle product is most likely financial, but don't forget to extract the security advantages.

Author: Jenny Schuchert

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