“The Government May Ban TP-Link Routers This Year.  How Worried Should You Be?”  Investigators at the DOJ and Commerce Departments have opened probes into the company and Chinese cyberattacks.  TP Link routers, according to a Wall Street Journal report estimate, account for 65% of router sales and 12% of home router sales.  Wow! Its not that the routers are insecure or unsafe to use but the relationship or corporate structure of Chinese companies and who has access to the information and how your information is protected. (CNET)

So, what does ITAM and asset tracking have to do with cybersecurity and associated risk management? Asset tracking really is one of the core functions of your ITAM program.  It is the process of knowing what is in your IT environment by make, model and serial number and it is the process for managing what comes into the environment, what is in use and what is being decommissioned.  It is the active process of managing this constant flow of IT hardware and focuses on managing risks associated with stored data and liabilities of the invested capital for all IT assets.  So, let’s consider a few key best practices of Asset Tracking.

First off, we must be able to identify assets and IAITAM’s Best Practice is to have a standardized asset tagging and naming convention to be applied to all hardware in your environment.  This consists of some type of physical tag like a bar code or RFID that is applied to hardware that is used to track the physical location through their lifecycle within your organization.  Effectively, this makes you put your name on the asset and take ownership of managing in and out of your hardware inventory.  Tags are generally metal, plastic or paper and will contain a barcode, QR code which is scannable and may or may not contain your company name.  You may also use RFID depending on your application, cost constraints or the environment where the hardware is being used. 

Tagging helps us to have better inventory control, establish clear ownership and helps to create an audit trail as assets move throughout your environment.  But the tagging process really enables us to take ownership of What Is In Our Environment.  And it is this very benefit that becomes our CISO’s best friend.  I am sure many of you read the news articles about the TP Link security concerns and the first thing you did was to pause and take a mental note of “Do I have any of these in my IT environment?”  Now a mental review is great but what you really need is an exact inventory of what is in your environment, how may TP Link assets exist, where they are located and then you are able to assess the costs to replace them and risk of not doing so.  This is why we track assets and the benefit of doing so. 

By implementing asset tagging, businesses can strengthen security protocols, maintain better control over their assets, and mitigate the risk of theft, loss, and unauthorized use. The system’s real-time tracking, accountability features, and integration with other security measures significantly enhance overall security management.  This is why we track assets and the benefit of doing so.