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How do you defend what you don’t know exists? In IT, this is more than just an existential question, or fuel for a philosophical debate. The existence of a complete network inventory—or the lack thereof—has a real-world impact on an organization’s ability to secure their network. Establishing and maintaining a network inventory is both a technological and a business process problem, and serves as an excellent example of the importance of open standards to a modern organization.
Consider for a moment NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). In April 2018 the JPL experienced a cybersecurity event. Upon investigation, it was determined that this was caused by someone smuggling an unauthorized Raspberry Pi onto the premises and connecting it to the network.
This incident triggered a security audit, and the results of that June 2019 report were, though not unexpected, still rather disappointing. The auditors’ biggest concern was that the JPL didn’t have a comprehensive, accurate picture of what devices were on its networks, nor did it know whether or not those devices were authorized to be there.
This lack of an up-to-date and automated network inventory led to a successful hack of the JPL via the unauthorized Raspberry Pi. Some Continue reading