Overview

Assets Asset Discovery

Asset Discovery is the process of automatically finding and cataloging every device connected to your organization's network, vissible or hidden. Think of it as creating a complete map of everything IT owns, from computers and servers to printers, medical devices, IoT sensors, smartphones and even devices employees bring in without IT's knowledge.

In today's distributed, cloud-connected world, this is nearly impossible to do manually. A typical midmarket organization has hundreds or thousands of devices spread across offices, remote worker homes, data centers, cloud providers, and factory floors. Some devices are managed by IT (laptops, desktops, servers); many are "unmanaged" (printers, IoT sensors, medical equipment); and some exist in "shadow IT": devices or software employees deployed without telling IT

Modern asset discovery works without installing software on each device. Instead, it listens to network traffic and sends gentle signals to discover what's connected. Within hours, organizations get a complete, accurate inventory. Devices they didn't know existed, configurations they weren't tracking and vulnerabilities they never saw coming.

Why is it important?

Asset discovery solves three critical business problems

Problem 1: You don't know what you own

The average organization discovers 25-30% of assetd it didn't know existed when implementing comprehensive asset discovery. In healthcare specifically, hospitals lose track of 30% of their medical devices. In manufacturing, critical operational equipment runs unmanaged because no one knows it's there

This invisibility creates massive risk:

• Security blindspots: Devices you don't know about can't be patched, hardened, or monitored for attacks
• Compliance violations: You can't prove to auditors what devices are in your enviornment or whether they meet security standards
• Operational failures: Equipment failures go undetected until they break; proactive maintenance is impossible

Example: A shared warehouse rents space to customers. Customers rent this space including electricity and Internet. During a scan, there were Bitcoin-miners found. The IT department didn't know about this. It became clear one of the renters installed an electricity cabinet to the wall, connected to electricity and the network mining Bitcoins.

Problem 2: Shadow devices and Unauthorized Devices (Security & Compliance Crisis)

Employees and departments constantly connect unauthorized hardware to the network without IT's knowledge:

• Personal laptops brought from home (unsecured, unpatched, potentially infected)
• Personal smartphones and tablest used for work (mixed personal/corporate data, no MDM control)
• IoT devices employees buy for convenience (smart speakers, fitness trackers, webcams,...)
• Rogue Access Points: Employees setting up personal WiFi routers
• Unauthorized network equipment: Switches, hubs, adapters employees connect to extend network

Why does this happen? Employees aren't malicious; they're solving practical problems. A remote worker's personal laptop is faster than the corporate one. An employee brings a personal tablet to take notes in meetings. A contractor plugs in their laptop to access customer data. A department buys a small network printer without IT's involvement because it's faster than going through procurement. None of these employees think they're creating security risk, they're just being practical

But shadow devices create catasrophic risk:

• Unpatched vulnerabilities: A personal laptop brought from home hasn't been patched in months. It has known vulnerabilities. The employee connects it to the corporate network. Attackers exploit those vulnerabilities to gain network access. The device had corporate email cached on it; now attackers have credentials. By the time IT realizes the compromise, attackers have moved to production systems
• Malware infection: A contractor's laptop is infected with malware (bought used, never scanned). It connects to the corporate network. The malware spreads to other network devices, corporate servers, and eventually ransomware deploys across the infrastructure
• Credential compromise: A personal device someone uses at coffee shops and home networks is compromised by attackers. That device also has corporate credentials. The attacker now has network access and appears to be a legitimate employee
• Operational disruption: A rogue access point connected to the network creates a backdoor for attackers. Critical systems become unsatable. A personal IoT device consumes bandwidth, affecting network performance

Asset discovery automatically detects shadow devices by monitoring what's actually connected and active on the network. When a personal laptop connects to the network, asset discovery sees it immediately, classifies it as unauthorized and alerts IT.

Problem 3: Vulnerability Management

Without knowing what you own, you can't prioritize what to patch. Security teams face overwhelming vulnerability lists:

• The average organization has 50.000-100.000 known vulnerabilities at any moment
• Patching everything is impossible; organizations can patch only 1-2% of vulnerabilities annually
• Which ones matter? Which are exploitable? Which affect critical systems?

Without asset discovery:

• Patch decisions are blind: IT teams guess which vulnerabilities to prioritize, often focusing on high CVSS scores that turn out to affect devices no one users
• Critical vulnerabilities are missed: A critical vulnerability might exist on an unmanaged device no one knows about
• Compliance fails: Auditors ask "Are you vulnerable to CVE-2024-12345?" The organization can't answer because it doesn't know all devices that could be affected.

Asset discovery creates the foundation for intelligent vulnerability management: it tells you exactly which devices exist and which vulnerabilities affect each one, enabling risk-based prioritization.

How to position

Primary Target Customer Segments

Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare faces extreme asset discovery urgency:

• Medical device proliferation: Hospitals deploy 10-15 connected devices per patient bed (monitoring equipment, infusion pumps, diagnostic machines, wearables)
• Legacy device dominance: Many medical devices run on specialized, locked-down operating systems that can't run standard security software: they must be discovered and monitored agentless
• Regulatory pressure: Regulations require security control and audit trails; regulators increasingly ask healthcare organizations "Can you prove you know all connected devices handling patient data?"
• Patient safety risk: A compromised medical device could harm patients. A ransomware attack on a hospital's systems cloud delay surgeries or disrupt patient monitoring
• Known inventory gaps: The average hospital has "lost track" of 30% of its medical devices. They exist in the infrastructure but aren't in any IT inventory.

Manufacturing & Operational Technology

Manufacturing environments rely on Operational Technology (OT): industrial control systems, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human-machine interfaces (HMIs), sensors, and machinery. These are often decades old, irreplaceable, fragile and running critical production.

The challenge: OT systems often can't be scanned like IT systems. Traditional active scanning (aggressive network probes) risks disrupting production. But passive discovery (quietly listening) or using specialize active scanning techniques find these devices safely, without risking downtime.

Midmarket Enterprises

Midmarket organizations are hitting the "too big to be manual, too small to have full IT staffing" inflection point. They're frustrated:

• IT has a spreadsheet of laptops and servers but knows about nothing else
• They suspect shadow IT is happening but can't see it
• They're failing compliance audits because they can't prove they know what devices they own
• They're spending money on security tools that can't protect unknown devies

Asset discovery is revelatory for this segment. Within 24-48 hours of deploying agentless discovery, these organizations see: "Wait, we have HOW many devices? We have WHAT in shadow IT? We have vulnerabilities on WHICH systems?"

Financial Services

Financial institutions face:

• Regulatory requirements: SEC rules (for public companies) and OCC guidelines require visibility into infrastructure
• Third-party risks: Partners, vendors, and contractors have access to systems; the bank must verify what devices they're using
• Fraud prevention: Asset discovery detects unauthorized trading terminals, unauthorized ATMs, or devices attempting data exfiltration
• Compliance audits: Auditors ask detailed questions about asset inventory; organizations must produce accurate records

Energy & Utilities

Utilities run critical infrastructure (power grids, water systems) that blend IT and OT. They face:

• NIS2 and critical infrastructure requirements: Visibility of all connected assets is mandatory
• SCADA system protection: Operational technology controlling power delivery must be monitored without disruption
• Cyber-physical risk: Attacks on IT could affect OT; discovering both is essential

Cross-Sell Opportunities

From Network Security to Asset Discovery

Organizations with firewalls, network security tools, or network monitoring are natural candidates. They've already invested in network visibility; asset discovery extends that visibility into device-level detail. Your firewall sees network traffic; asset discovery sees what devices are creating that traffic. Together, they give you complete visibility: what devices are on your network and what they're communicating with.

From Vulnerability Management to Asset Discovery

Organizations running vulnerability scanning tools (Qualys, Tenable, Rapid7) are managing vulnerabilities but are blind to devices that vulnerability scanners can't reach (OT equipment, air-gapped systems, fragile infrastructure, shadow IT). Asset discovery finds those invisible devices and enables unified vulnerability management.

From Identity & Access Management to Asset Discovery

Organizations deploying Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) or Network Access Control (NAC) need device visibility to enforce access policies. Without knowing what devices exist, you can't enforce which devices get network access

From Endpoint Protection to Asset Discovery

Organizations with EDR/EPP solutions are protecting managed endpoints but missing unmanaged devices. Asset discovery finds the unmanaged devices; combined with vulnerability management, it closes gaps.

Specifics

Active vs Passive Discovery

Active Discovery

Active Discovery software sends network probes to address (similar to a doctor tapping your knee to check reflexes). These probes are standard network protocols (SNMP, WMI, SSH, HTTP). Devices respond with information: "I'm a Windows server running SQL Server", "I'm a medical device running firmware version 2.5", "I'm a printer on IP 192.168.1.50".

Advantages of active discovery:

• Complete and detailed device information (operating system, software, services, configuration)
• Fast (scans complete in hours or days, not weeks)
• Precise fingerprinting of devices and vulnerabilities

Challenges:

• Requires network access. However CLI-scanners can help in this case.
• Some sensitive environments worry active scanning might disrupt operations. Using well-designed templates shouldn't disrupt anything however.

Passive Discovery

Passive Discovery is the "eavesdropping" approach. Asset discovery software listens to network traffic without sending probes. When a device communicates (sends emails, downloads files, checks for updates), the discovery tool observes that communication and learns: "Ah, I see a Windows server with this configuration", "There's a medical device communicating in this pattern", "There's a printer requesting DHCP"

Advantages of passive discovery:

• Non-intrusive; no risk of disrupting fragile systems
• Works on fully air-gapped networks (if you mirror traffic) without CLI-scanning software.
• Can run continuously without operational impact
• Safe for OT environments where active scanning is forbidden

Challenges:

• Slower (requires more time to observe patterns)
• Less complete datil (only what the device communicates)
• Might miss quiet devices that rarely communicate

Best practice: Organizations use hybrid discovery: active scanning for IT systems where it's safe, passive scanning for OT systems where safety is critical. This balances speed, completeness and operational safety. Or choose for an active scanning solution that uses special playbooks for OT environments that are safe to use

Agentless Discovery

Traditional inventory tools required installing an "agent" (small software) on every device. This worked for laptops and servers but was impossible for:

• Printers (which run embedded OS, can't run agent software)
• Medical devices (which are locked-down, can't run unauthorized software)
• IoT sensors (which have minimal processing power)
• Mobile devices (which employees wouldn't allow software installation on)
• Operational technology (which is decades old and can't support agent software)

Agentless discovery eliminated this barrier. Instead of installing software, the discovery tool uses network protocols to query devices remotely:

• SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol): Used by network devices, printers, some servers
• WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation): Used by Windows servers and workstations
• SSH (Secure Shell): Used by Linux and other servers, network infrastructure,...
• HTTP/HTTPS: Used by web-based device interfaces
• A lot of other network protocols: Nowadays asset discovery solutions support a wide-range of network protocols

By combining these protocols with active network scanning, agentless tools achieve comprehensive discovery without requiring any installation

Agentless advantage: Deploy asset discovery in hours; no agent deployment, no configuration per device, no maintenance. Organizations get immediate visibility into their complete infrastructure.

CMDB (Configuration Management Database)

The CMDB is the "source of truth" for IT asset inventory. It's a centralized database that records:

• What devices exist: Computers, servers, network equipment, printers, medical devices
• Device attributes: Manufacturer, model, operating system, firmware version, serial number, IP address
• Software inventory: Installed applications, versions, patch status
• Asset relationships: This laptop uses this network printer, This server connects to this database, This medical device feeds data to this monitoring system
• Change history: When was this device added? When was it patched? When was it decommissioned?
• Assignment: Who owns this device? Who's responsible for its security?

Asset discovery tools continuously feed the CMDB. When discovery identifies a new device, the CMDB is automatically updated. When a device is patched or reconfigured, the CMDB reflects that change. This automation ensures the CMDB stays accurate without manual data entry.

Why CMDB matters: IT Service Management (ITSM) tools like ServiceNow, Datto, SolarWinds integrate with CMDB. When a vulnerability is discovered, the CMDB tells you exactly which devices are affected. When an incident occurs, the CMDB shows how systems are connected, enabling faster incident response. When auditors ask "Can you prove you know your asset inventory?", the CMDB is the answer.

Fingerprinting (How devices are identified)

Fingerprinting is how asset discovery knows "this device is a Canon printer running firmware 5.2".

How fingerprinting works: Every device communicates in characteristic ways. When you send an SNMP query, a Cisco router responds with a particular format. When you send an HTTP request, an HP printer responds with specific headers. By analyzing these response patterns, discovery tools create a "fingerprint": a unique signature identifying the device type, manufacturer, model and software.

Fingerprinting is powerful because:

• It's accuratel Fingerprints are specific enough to identify exact device models and software versions
• It's fast: Analysis happens in milliseconds
• It's safe: Fingerprinting uses standard protocols that devices expect
• It works at scale: Fingerprinting thousands of devices simultaneously

The discovery tool compares fingerprints to a database of millions of known devices, enabling rapid, accurate classification.

Vulnerability Detection in Discovery (Finding Risks Automatically)

Modern asset discovery doesn't just identify devices; it immediately flags vulnerabilities on those devices.

How it works: When discovery identifies a device as a "Windows Server 2016 with outdated patch level," it automatically checks: "Is this patch level vulnerable to known CVEs?" If yes, the discovery tool flags the vulnerability with severity and exploitability information

This is powerful because:

• Automated risk assessment: You don't have to run separate vulnerability scanners; discovery flags risks in real-time
• Prioritization: Critical vulnerabilities on important devices are flagged first
• Actionable: Security teams know immediately which devices need patching and why

Shadow IT Detection (Finding Unauthorized Devices and Software)

Shadow IT detection works by comparing "what IT thinks exists" to "what's actually on the network".

How it works:

• IT maintains an approved device list: "These are the laptops we deployed, these are the servers we manage"
• Asset discovery scans the network and finds all connected devices
• Comparison: Any device found on the network that's NOT on the approved list is flagged as shadow IT
• Similarly, any software found running on devices that's not on the approved software list is flagged as unauthorized

Risk scoring and Prioritization

Vulnerability management is chaos if every vulnerability is treated equally. A CVSS 9.0 vulnerability on an unimportant device might be less urgent that a CVSS 6.0 vulnerability on a critical system.

Risk scoring considers multiple factors:

• Vulnerability severity (CVSS score: 0.1-10)
• Asset criticality: Is this device running patient-facing healthcare systems? Production financial transactions? Or is it a test device?
• Asset visibility: Is this device internet-facing where attackers can reach it, or is it internal-only
• Asset value: What is the business impact if this device is compromised
• Exploitability: Is there a working exploit for this vulnerability, or is exploitation theoretical?
• Patch availability: Can this vulnerability be fixed, or must it be mitigated through other controls?

Conclusion

Asset discovery is foundational to modern security because you cannot secure what you don't know you have. Organizations deploying asset discovery typically make three realizations within days:

1. We have more devices than we thought: 25-30% more, often including critical devices IT didn't know existed
2. We have a shadow IT problem: Employees have deployed unauthorized technology; management and control are urgent
3. We have vulnerabilities we can't patch because we don't control these devices: Medical equipment, IoT sensors, OT systems exist in the infrastructure but aren't managed by IT

These realizations are uncomfortable but necessary. Asset discovery is the foundation for:

• Effetive vulnerability management: You can't patch what you don't know about
• Compliance audits: Auditors need proof you know your asset inventory
• Security incident response: Understanding what was affected requires knowing what exists
• Zero Trust enforcement: Can't verify device identity without knowing what devices exist
• Cost optimization: Discovering redundant or underutilized assets