First Step in Cyber Defense: Find All Your Systems

Computer image designed by standret / Freepik

You can’t protect something unless you know it’s there.

Here’s a puzzle for you: If your antivirus tool lists 100 computers, and your patching system lists 100 computers, and your Microsoft Active Directory lists 100 computers, and your TCP/IP network address system lists 100 computers, how many computers do you have? Surprisingly, the answer is: We have more than 100 computers.

But the catch is, We don’t really know where they all are.

That was the situation faced by a Vision client. As in many IT environments, computer systems were constantly being purchased, installed, moved, renamed, and retired. Our client needed all their systems to be up to date with patches, antivirus, and other security software. You can’t secure a computer you don’t know about.

Vision Technologies solved this puzzle by creating software to pull inventory data from the different security systems and combining them in a single custom database. This unified view showed us systems that were in the antivirus system but not in the patching system, and so forth.

Now we know the answer is not “We have 100 computers” but “We have more than 100 computers, and some of them are not fully protected.”

Automating these inventories turned a manual, error-prone, tedious once-a-quarter reconciliation process into a simple once-a-day event. Our automation quickly finds any new system or any that have become non-compliant. We can even send automated exception reports whenever discrepancies show up.

With help from Vision, our client’s IT security improved greatly. They were confident they knew what systems were in use at any time.

No one can secure a system they don’t know is there. An unpatched or otherwise unprotected computer is a risk you want to eliminate as quickly as you can.

Contact Vision to learn how we can help you protect your systems.

Kevin Weinrich
Professional Services