Cyberattacks threaten organizations’ data, operations, and revenue. In 2021, the average cost of an enterprise data breach rose to $4.24 million, and data breaches related to cyberattacks increased by 27 percent over 2020.
Total asset visibility and intelligence creates the foundation for stronger cyberattack protection.
More than a third of devices in the typical organization’s environment are unmanaged, so traditional security tools can’t see them, much less provide important insights about them. In that visibility gap, devices can be compromised, and their connections exploited without raising alarms. That’s why a solution that can see unmanaged devices and provide deep levels of contextual intelligence is important.
Understanding where every device sits in the environment is another key cybersecurity need. Network segmentation limits intruders’ access to critical systems and databases to prevent data exfiltration, ransomware attacks, and remote hijacking of operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS), and other devices.
When organizations can identify and locate every asset, they can monitor their behaviors and compare them against known good behavior. This process requires a large, continuously updated knowledgebase of device data to provide rich behavior insights based on usage context.
Continuously comparing device attributes to known standards can reveal firmware and software that needs patches or updates for security. And continuously comparing device behavior to known standards quickly identifies anomalies that can signal threats. For example, communication with an unknown device or a transfer of a larger than normal amount of data.
When a vulnerability or a threat appears, an effective security solution will alert the security team and automatically enforce any policies that the team has set up. For example, the solution can isolate a device that’s exhibiting suspicious activity from the rest of its network or completely disconnect it.
Accurate device inventories and activity records are key resources for demonstrating compliance with data protection and operational security regulations. An effective solution for cyberattack prevention will provide this information and continuously update it to provide both a real-time snapshot of devices a with details about their behavior over time. These records are useful for forensic investigations in the event of an incident, and for team review after testing.
The Armis platform uses passive, agentless monitoring technology to identify every device in the organization’s environment. The Armis Device Knowledgebase is the world’s largest, with real-time data on more than two billion devices that provides up-to-date insights on firmware, software, and behavior to protect organizations from cyberattacks on all their devices.