Why ITAM Professionals Should Step Up and Support Cybersecurity

The recent M&S cyberattack sent shockwaves through the industry – not just for its scale (an estimated £40 million a week in lost sales) but for the spotlight it cast on a simple truth: cybersecurity is everyone’s job.

As IT Asset Management (ITAM) professionals, we’ve traditionally focused on inventory accuracy, license compliance, and lifecycle tracking. But modern threats don’t respect organisational boundaries. When disaster strikes, ITAM holds the keys to fast, effective response: knowing what’s connected, what’s running, and what’s vulnerable.

The Maersk and Equifax breaches showed how devastating poor asset visibility can be. Lack of accurate system inventories delayed recovery efforts, contributing to financial losses of $300 million and $1.4 billion respectively. The M&S incident underlines this again.

So here’s the call to action: ITAM professionals should consider cyber security training.

You don’t need to become a penetration tester or incident responder overnight. But understanding the language, priorities, and processes of your security colleagues will make you an invaluable ally. You’ll know how to align asset data with threat intelligence. You’ll be able to spot anomalies, track shadow IT, and ensure critical systems are properly patched and monitored.

Think of it as expanding your toolkit:

• Learn basic incident response principles.
• Understand how to support vulnerability and patch management.
• Gain familiarity with common security frameworks (like NIST CSF or ISO 27001).
• Be ready to provide clean, trustworthy asset data the moment it’s needed.

Your insight into the real-world state of IT infrastructure can dramatically speed up containment and recovery efforts. In a cyber crisis, clarity equals speed – and speed reduces damage.

Don’t let your organisation be next. Step up, skill up, and be the bridge between ITAM and Security.