Question 1

How many out-of-the-box API integrations does the platform have for ingesting asset data (EDR, cloud providers, identity, vulnerability scanners, CMDB, MDM), and what is the typical setup effort per integration?

Accepted Answer

CAASM value scales with integration breadth — look for a specific connector count, and per-connector setup measured in minutes/hours (API-key config), not per-connector professional-services engagements.

Question 2

Describe the asset-correlation/deduplication engine — how are records for the same asset from different sources (EDR, cloud, AD) merged into one canonical asset, and what is the measured deduplication accuracy with a customer reference?

Accepted Answer

Correlation quality is the core product — strong answers explain the matching logic (identifiers used, conflict resolution) and give a real accuracy figure, since bad merging produces double-counted or phantom assets.

Question 3

What coverage-gap analysis does the platform provide — e.g., assets seen by AD but missing an EDR agent, cloud instances missing from the vulnerability scanner — and can gaps trigger automated tickets/workflows?

Accepted Answer

Gap analysis (asset known here, missing there) is CAASM's most actionable output; look for automated gap-to-ticket workflows, not just a report a human must re-derive weekly.

Question 4

Is the asset inventory queryable with a real query language (and saved queries), and can non-technical stakeholders get answers without learning it?

Accepted Answer

Look for both: a real query language for power users and saved/natural-language access for everyone else — a query-language-only product limits who benefits.

Question 5

Detail data freshness — how often does each connector sync, what is the end-to-end lag from a change in a source system to the unified inventory reflecting it, and how are stale/orphaned records aged out?

Accepted Answer

Strong answers state per-connector sync intervals and an end-to-end freshness figure, plus explicit stale-record aging — an inventory that silently accumulates dead assets loses trust fast.

Question 6

Does the platform cover non-traditional assets — SaaS applications, cloud identities/service accounts, IoT/OT, code repositories — or is it limited to conventional endpoints and servers?

Accepted Answer

The attack surface is increasingly identities and SaaS, not just devices — look for genuine coverage of these classes, not a device-inventory product with aspirational messaging.

Question 7

Explain how the platform supports compliance evidence (e.g., 'all production assets have EDR + are scanned') — can control-coverage queries be scheduled and exported as auditor-ready reports?

Accepted Answer

Look for scheduled, exportable control-coverage reporting mapped to specific controls — this is a major CAASM buying driver and should be first-class, not a CSV export.

Question 8

What happens at renewal if we cut the products feeding the platform (e.g., swap EDR vendors) — how portable are the saved queries, dashboards, and historical asset data?

Accepted Answer

A CAASM product should survive stack changes gracefully (that's its point); look for connector-agnostic queries and historical data portability, not lock-in to the current tool mix.

Question 9

What is the pricing model — per asset, per connector/integration, or a flat enterprise tier — and given that a successful deployment inherently surfaces a larger asset count than initially estimated, how does pricing respond to that discovery-driven growth?

Accepted Answer

Same tension as other discovery-driven categories (ASM, DSPM, NHI): ask explicitly how pricing handles a large post-onboarding jump in the counted asset population.

Question 10

What is the false-positive/false-negative rate specifically on asset correlation and deduplication (incorrectly merging two distinct assets into one record, or failing to merge records that are actually the same asset), and what mechanism exists to correct and improve accuracy over time?

Accepted Answer

Correlation errors directly undermine every downstream CAASM capability (coverage-gap analysis, compliance reporting) — ask for a real, customer-validated accuracy figure and a correction feedback loop.

Question 11

Does the platform support a fast 'what do we know about this specific asset' lookup workflow suitable for use during an active security incident, or is the interface built primarily for periodic posture review rather than time-critical incident response?

Accepted Answer

A CAASM tool's unified inventory is a genuinely valuable incident-response resource if the lookup workflow is fast enough — ask for a concrete example of it being used during a real incident, not just steady-state posture management.

Question 12

Detail historical trend reporting on asset-inventory completeness and coverage-gap counts over time, suitable for demonstrating program maturity progress to leadership, distinct from a real-time current-state snapshot.

Accepted Answer

Trend-over-time reporting is a distinct capability from a real-time dashboard — confirm this exists as a maintained, exportable report showing genuine progress (or regression) over quarters.

Question 13

Who within the customer organization gets access to the unified asset inventory itself, and is there role-based access control over it, given that a complete asset map is itself valuable reconnaissance information if it fell into the wrong hands?

Accepted Answer

A complete, correlated asset inventory is a meaningful target in its own right — role-based access control over the CAASM tool's own findings, not just over the underlying source systems, is a often-overlooked consideration.

Question 14

How deep is integration with ticketing/remediation workflows for coverage gaps specifically — does a discovered gap (e.g., an asset missing EDR coverage) automatically generate an owner-attributed ticket, or does the customer have to manually cross-reference the CAASM inventory against their own tracking?

Accepted Answer

Automated, owner-attributed ticket creation is materially more actionable than a raw gap list requiring manual triage and cross-referencing by the security team.

Question 15

Is there a documented, accessible API for exporting the full unified asset inventory into the customer's own CMDB, data warehouse, or BI tooling, and is that a one-time pull or a continuously synced feed?

Accepted Answer

A continuously synced API feed keeping the customer's own systems current is materially more valuable than a one-time export that goes stale immediately after the initial pull.

Question 16

What is a customer-referenced onboarding timeline from contract signature to the platform producing a genuinely useful, deduplicated unified inventory, and what customer-side effort (connector configuration, access credentials) does that require?

Accepted Answer

Strong answers give a concrete, customer-validated timeline and are honest about the customer-side integration effort required, not just vendor-side setup time.

Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) evaluation questionnaire

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