Security News > 2018 > March > Axonius Uses Existing Tools to Find, Secure Devices
Axonius emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with a platform designed to help organizations identify and secure all the devices on their network by leveraging existing security and management tools. The company aims to bridge the gap between device discovery and vulnerability assessment products with a solution that combines data from existing tools in an effort to provide a centralized view of all devices and help enterprises ensure that all their systems are patched. Vulnerability assessment tools may be efficient in identifying and prioritizing systems that need patching, but they often don’t have access to all devices due to the fragmented nature of corporate environments. Axonius says its Cybersecurity Asset Management Platform can leverage combinations of nearly 30 tools from various vendors in order to discover all the devices on a network, obtain information about those systems, and ensure that they are not neglected by vulnerability scanners. The company has created what it calls “adapters” to integrate tools from Microsoft, Amazon, Cisco, enSilo, ESET, Forcepoint, Fortinet, IBM, Juniper, McAfee, ManageEngine, Qualys, Rapid7, Splunk, Symantec, VMware and others into its platform. New adapters will be added in the future based on customers’ needs – the company is currently working on integrating tools from Carbon Black, Cylance, ObserveIT, CrowdStrike and others. Adding new adapters is in most cases an easy task given that most vendors provide APIs. The company told SecurityWeek that it’s unlikely for an organization that has a problem with fragmentation and visibility not to have at least some of the supported tools – for example, Microsoft’s Active Directory can be found in most companies. Security teams can manually query devices to ensure that they adhere to their organization’s policies, but they can also configure the platform to automatically alert them via email or syslog whenever a device that fits specified criteria is detected. In addition to helping organizations gain full visibility into the devices on their network, Axonius says its platform can also be used to enforce policies. Employees can manually choose to either block a device, scan it, or deploy an agent, but they can also automate various tasks using plugins. Since it does not require the deployment of an agent, Axonius says its platform can be deployed quickly and easily once it has access to all the credentials and third-party tools. The company claims it has deployed its solution in an afternoon at an organization with roughly 10,000 endpoints, and the job has never taken more than a couple of days. “Since we do connect to the security and management systems a customer already has, there's no custom work to do, no professional services, and we're able to start showing value immediately,” Nathan Burke, CMO of Axonius, told SecurityWeek. “At most organizations, security teams are swamped and time is their scarcest resource. The last thing they want to do is spend time on a lengthy and complicated deployment.” Deploying the solution only requires a VMware ESXi machine that has inbound and outbound access to all managed adapters. Pricing for the product is based on an annual subscription and it depends on the number of devices. Axonius’ headquarters is in New York and its research and development department is located in Israel. The company received $4 million in seed funding in September 2017 and it has now announced the general availability of its product, which it claims is already used by very large companies around the world to manage more than 100,000 endpoints. Related: PureSec Emerges From Stealth With Security Product for Serverless Apps Related: Elastic Beam Emerges From Stealth With API Security Solution Related: Cloud Security Firm Luminate Emerges From Stealth (function() { var po = document.createElement("script"); po.type = "text/javascript"; po.async = true; po.src = "https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })(); Tweet Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.Previous Columns by Eduard Kovacs:Axonius Uses Existing Tools to Find, Secure DevicesIntel CPUs Vulnerable to New 'BranchScope' AttackCanadian Firm Linked to Cambridge Analytica Exposed Source CodeUkrainian Suspected of Leading Carbanak Gang Arrested in SpainOne Year Later, Hackers Still Target Apache Struts Flaw 2018 ICS Cyber Security Conference | USA [Oct. 22-25] 2018 ICS Cyber Security Conference | Singapore [April. 24-26] Register for the 2018 CISO Forum at Half Moon Bay sponsored links Tags: Endpoint Security Network Security NEWS & INDUSTRY Identity & Access Security Architecture Security Infrastructure Management & Strategy