Recently, Axonius was recognized as a Sample Vendor in the SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) and Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) categories in the Gartner® Hype Cycle™ Cycle for Workload and Network Security, 2023 report. And it got us thinking - why all the hype around CAASM and SSPM?
To start, let’s first take a look at how Gartner defines both categories. CAASM “is focused on enabling security teams to overcome asset visibility and exposure challenges” and SSPM “continuously assesses the security risk and manages the security posture of SaaS applications.” In short, both CAASM and SSPM tools enable organizations to better manage their digital infrastructure.
Specifically, CAASM and SSPM solutions allow organizations to see all assets and applications regardless of where they reside. This is done by using API integrations with existing tools, enabling query capabilities to examine asset data, and offering capabilities to remediate issues. In a world where cybersecurity only gets more complex with time, having this insight is beyond valuable.
Why SSPM and CAASM are the Latest Emerging Technologies on the Block
From technological change to an increase in government regulations and ongoing economic uncertainty, organizations have had a lot to deal with this year. And for IT and security teams responsible for managing risk, these changes only exacerbate visibility challenges.
Even prior to 2023, IT and security teams struggled to gain the right level of visibility into all assets and SaaS applications in their environment, making it harder to secure them. This data exists in many different places – but the data is siloed, duplicative, or contradictory – making it difficult for IT and security teams to answer even the most basic questions about their IT environment.
However, that no longer needs to be the case. Fully unified platforms like Axonius, which combines solutions in Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), and SaaS Management Platforms (SMP), gives customers a comprehensive understanding of all assets, their relationships, and business-level context.
Axonius allows organizations to:
- Offer a consolidated view of all company assets to multiple teams
- Gain a complete picture of the company attack surface
- Understand security control coverage and efficacy
- Streamline audit preparation and compliance reporting
- Understand shadow IT and assets that lack governance and control
- Identify SaaS app misconfigurations and risks
- Optimize SaaS licensing and spend
- Accelerate incident response while eliminating manual, repetitive tasks
We already know that SaaS usage will continue to grow, and so too will the amount of sensitive information being stored in SaaS apps. And without the proper visibility, IT and security teams risk configuration errors, suspicious or malicious behavior, and inadequate user access privileges. Additionally, with digital infrastructure continuing to evolve, the need for CAASM solutions that provide a complete asset inventory, identify security gaps, and automatically enforce policies become even more necessary.
Solving an Unaddressed Problem
For too long, companies have struggled to get a reliable view into their infrastructure. Axonius was founded in 2017 to solve this unaddressed and foundational problem. Without a comprehensive, up-to-date inventory of all unique assets, IT and security teams can’t manage and secure what they don’t know about.
Over the past few years, we’ve been laser-focused on this problem. With the feedback of our customers, we’ve expanded our platform to build hundreds of adapters that fetch and normalize asset data into a common schema, and numerous actions used to automate response and remediation.
With hundreds of customers now using the unified Axonius platform, we couldn’t agree more with Gartner that CAASM and SSPM are emerging technologies worth adding to your tech stack.
Download the 2023 Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for Workload and Network Security to learn why SSPM and CAASM tools and approaches are the best first lines of defense for managing workload and network security.
Gartner, Hype Cycle for Workload and Network Security, 2023, By Charlie Winckless, Feng Gao, 31 July 2023.
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