Keep your data and technology inventories updated
With technology and systems being such an integral part of daily operations, it is important to ensure that you are keeping your data and technology infrastructure inventories up to date. Data inventories are important to identify any updates to the data collected and how that data is used and stored by your department or third-party vendors.
Updated inventories can keep your department abreast of sensitive data collected. or personally identifiable information (PII). They can also help track and document licenses, and ensure that security patches are up to date.
Data and technology inventories are also a crucial component of your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans. In the event of an outage or other incident, inventories are critical tools for quickly identifying how data or systems have been compromised. They can also help recovery and restoration plans.
Include Software as a Service (SAAS) applications, third-party vendors, cloud providers, and any web-based applications in addition to infrastructure maintained by your department.
Auditors are now routinely reviewing IT internal controls to evaluate data reliability, and may ask how often inventories are updated.
Action Steps
- Validate that you have a process in place with your purchasing, IT, legal and compliance teams to routinely update your data and technology inventories.
- Include these inventories in your department Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans
- Need some ideas? See our Four Steps to Prepare for a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment PDF with recommendations.