The Digital Operational Resilience Act, or DORA, is an EU regulation created to strengthen the financial sector’s ability to withstand, respond to, and recover from ICT-related disruptions. It applies to many financial entities, including banks, payment institutions, investment firms, insurance companies, crypto-asset service providers, and certain ICT third-party providers.
DORA covers several areas of ICT risk, including risk management, incident reporting, resilience testing, third-party risk, and governance.
DORA refers to both information assets and ICT assets. This article focuses on the ICT asset side: the technology assets that support business operations, including devices, systems, infrastructure, software, and network resources.
We are not covering information assets, such as the data, records, or information resources an organization needs to protect and manage. Instead, we are looking at how IT asset management, or ITAM, can support better visibility, ownership, lifecycle tracking, and reporting for ICT assets under DORA.
ITAM does not replace a full DORA compliance program. But it can help provide the reliable asset foundation that DORA-related governance, risk, and resilience efforts often depend on.
Below are six ICT asset expectations under DORA and how ITAM can help support them.
1. DORA Expects Organizations to Know What ICT Assets They Have
The starting point is visibility.
Organizations need a reliable view of the ICT assets across their environment. This may include hardware, software, infrastructure, network resources, cloud-related assets, and other technology components that support operations.
The challenge is that asset data often lives across different systems. Procurement may know what was purchased. MDM tools may know what is enrolled. HR may know who is active. The help desk may know what was requested. Finance may know what is depreciating.
But when those records are disconnected, teams may not have one trusted view of their ICT asset environment.
How ITAM Supports Asset Visibility:
ITAM helps centralize ICT asset records so teams can see what assets exist, where they are, who uses them, and what status they are in. Instead of relying on disconnected records across procurement, MDM, HR, help desk, and finance systems, ITAM gives teams a more reliable view of their asset environment. This helps IT, security, risk, and operations teams work from the same foundation when reviewing ICT asset governance.
2. DORA Expects ICT Assets to Be Connected to Business Functions
DORA is not only concerned with whether assets exist. It also expects organizations to understand how ICT assets support business functions, especially critical or important ones.
This matters because not every asset carries the same level of risk. Some assets support routine work. Others support services, systems, or processes that are essential to business continuity.
A simple inventory may answer, “Do we have this asset?”
A stronger asset program should also help answer, “What does this asset support?”
How ITAM Adds Business Context:
ITAM helps connect assets to users, departments, locations, business units, services, and workflows. When integrated with systems such as HRIS, MDM, help desk, and identity tools, ITAM can give teams a clearer view of how assets support the business. This added context helps teams identify which assets need closer oversight, stronger controls, or higher recovery priority.
3. DORA Expects Clear Ownership and Accountability
Asset visibility is weaker when ownership is unclear.
If an important asset has no owner, no assigned user, or no responsible team, it becomes harder to manage. Teams may not know who should approve changes, confirm usage, respond to issues, recover the asset, or verify whether the record is still accurate.
Ownership is especially important for assets tied to critical services, regulated workflows, or sensitive operations.
How ITAM Strengthens Ownership:
ITAM helps define ownership across users, departments, locations, technical teams, and business units. It also tracks how ownership changes as assets are assigned, reassigned, recovered, stored, or retired. This makes ICT asset records more useful for governance, security, recovery, and decision-making because teams can see who is responsible for each asset and where follow-up is needed.
4. DORA Expects ICT Asset Records to Stay Current Across the Lifecycle
ICT asset records can become outdated quickly if they are only updated at purchase or deployment.
Assets move through many stages. They are procured, received, assigned, reassigned, repaired, stored, recovered, retired, wiped, disposed of, or redeployed. If those changes are not reflected in the asset record, the inventory may look complete while still being inaccurate.
Common issues include:
- Devices still assigned to former employees
- Loaner assets that were never returned
- Assets in storage but still marked active
- Retired devices without disposal records
- Hardware past warranty or support life
- Assets purchased but never properly entered into inventory
How ITAM Keeps Lifecycle Records Current:
ITAM helps track assets from procurement to retirement, including receiving, deployment, reassignment, storage, recovery, redeployment, disposal, and data wipe activity. This helps teams identify records that need attention, such as devices assigned to former employees, loaners that were never returned, assets still marked active in storage, or retired devices missing disposal evidence.
5. DORA Expects ICT Asset Data to Support Security and Resilience
DORA is focused on ICT risk and operational resilience. That means asset records should support more than inventory management.
Security, risk, and operations teams need asset records that can help with patching, monitoring, access review, vulnerability management, incident response, and recovery planning.
If asset records are inaccurate, teams may struggle to identify which assets are exposed, who owns them, where they are located, or whether they support critical operations.
How ITAM Supports Security and Resilience:
ITAM gives security, IT, and risk teams better asset context for patching, monitoring, access review, vulnerability management, incident response, and recovery planning. It can help teams identify unmanaged equipment, unsupported assets, missing owners, devices tied to inactive users, and assets that may need to be prioritized during recovery. ITAM does not replace security tools, but it helps improve the quality of the asset records those tools and teams rely on.
6. DORA Expects Evidence Teams Can Trust
DORA-related readiness depends on documentation and evidence. It is not enough to say ICT assets are tracked. Teams need records and reports that show how assets are managed, reviewed, updated, recovered, and retired.
This is where weak asset records can create problems. If records are scattered or outdated, teams may need to manually piece together information during audits, reviews, incidents, or internal reporting.
How ITAM Strengthens Reporting and Evidence:
ITAM helps turn asset activity into usable evidence. Reports can show current inventory, ownership, assignment history, lifecycle status, recovery activity, retired assets, missing details, and exceptions that need review. This gives IT, security, risk, and compliance teams a clearer way to show that ICT asset controls are being maintained and reviewed over time.
Strong ITAM Creates a Better Foundation for DORA Readiness
DORA readiness requires more than ITAM. Organizations also need strong governance, ICT risk management, incident reporting, resilience testing, third-party oversight, and business continuity planning.
But many of those efforts depend on trusted asset records. If teams cannot rely on their ICT asset records, it becomes harder to manage risk, prioritize recovery, respond to incidents, and produce evidence when needed.
Strong ITAM helps organizations move beyond basic inventory tracking and toward better ICT asset governance. Teqtivity helps teams keep that governance grounded in accurate records, clear ownership, and lifecycle visibility.
For organizations reviewing their DORA-related ICT asset readiness, this is a practical place to start.
Assess Your ICT Asset Readiness
Want to evaluate where your organization stands today?
Download the ICT Asset Readiness Assessment to review your current asset visibility, ownership, lifecycle governance, security alignment, resilience, and evidence practices.
Use it to identify where your ITAM program is strong, where records may be incomplete, and where better asset governance can support DORA-related resilience efforts.