What is Qualys Global IT Asset Inventory and how do I use it?

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Overview

A guide on how to use Qualys’s Global IT Asset Inventory, a system built into Qualys that allows you to view and organize all the assets in a unit.

Details

To access this, when you log in go to the upper left-hand corner of the screen and click on where it says VMDR. You will get a drop-down menu containing the various modules that make up the Qualys service. This will change over time as UIC’s licenses with Qualys change. From here choose Global IT Asset Inventory.

identifying where to find global IT asset inventory in the menu

When you log into the Global IT Asset Inventory you will be put at the Home tab. This tab simply explains the functionality of the Global IT Asset Inventory.

To begin exploring the Global IT Asset Inventory move to the Dashboard tab in the upper left of the screen

identifying the dashboard button in the navigation

The dashboard is made up of various widgets that you can create, customize, and move around as you please. Here we have an example of a Dashboard page with some widgets already set up.

example asset categories screen

If you look at the page, there is a plus side in the upper right-hand corner which lets you add a widget. Clicking this will bring up the dialogue box to create a custom widget or use one of the premade widgets.

highlighting the plus icon

widget templates screen

Using the widgets you can have a wide variety of information available at your fingertips as soon as you log into the Dashboard based on scans without having to go through a report yourself. This is a great way to save time.

The next section we will look at is the Inventory part of the Global IT Asset Inventory, which, as the name suggests, is the centerpiece of this module. Click on the Inventory tab at the top of the page.

highlighting the inventory button in the navigation

Here you will see all the assets you manage and can search through them for specific assets. The data displayed here is based on the latest scan, or when an agent is involved, the last reported information from the agent. You can also generate a search range to see data from Today, the last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, the current month, the previous month, or even specify a date range.

Each asset is clickable and this gives details from either the last scan or the last report from the agent. This includes information on what software is installed and running on the machine, network traffic information, and open ports. They also show all the vulnerabilities seen on the asset in the last scan or report and give detailed information on those vulnerabilities.

example asset summary screen

example vulnerabilities view

The last tab of the Global IT Asset Inventory is the Tags section. This lists all of the Asset Tags that you have access to and will allow you to view or sort the assets with each tag. You can search by, filter, or even create a new tag here.

example tags screen

example tag details view

With the tools available in the Global IT Asset Inventory, you can easily view and organize all of your assets, as well as see all of the present vulnerabilities.

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