A flat list of 800 assets does not help an operator decide what to look at first. Access Gate lets you tag networks (vnets) and assets with an impact and a security level and carry that tag through every screen: the asset inventory, the alerts view, the ACL editor, the reports you export. That's what the risk matrix and vnet labels are for.
The Risk Matrix at a Glance
The risk matrix is a two-axis grid: likelihood × impact. Every asset lands in one cell.
| Low impact | Medium impact | High impact | Critical | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rare | Informational | Monitor | Investigate | Priority |
| Likely | Monitor | Investigate | Priority | Urgent |
| Frequent | Investigate | Priority | Urgent | Urgent |
- Impact is a property of the asset — you set it once and it stays.
- Likelihood is derived from traffic, detection signal, and open ports.
This is how the Alerts view sorts events: a low-severity alert on a Critical asset outranks a high-severity alert on a lab workstation.
Setting Security Level on an Asset
Set impact for an asset
- Navigate to Assets → [Your Asset].
- Click the pencil icon → Edit overview.
- Pick Security Level: Low, Medium, High, Critical.
- Save.
The Security Level tag propagates to every alert and report referencing that asset.
Set impact for a user
- Navigate to Users → [Your User].
- Click the pencil icon → Edit overview.
- Pick Security Level: Low, Medium, High, Critical.
- Save.
The Security Level tag propagates to every alert and report referencing that user.
Subnet Labels
A Subnet is a logical network — an overlay range, a monitored VLAN, a zone. For each subnet, you should define the impact: limited, moderate, strong & critical. This Impact will allow to prioritize alerts and enforce policies.
Setting Labels on a Subnet
Label a Subnet
- Navigate to Settings → Subnets → [Your subnet].
- Click the pencil icon.
- Select a value from the Impact dropdown.
- Save.
How Security Level and Impact Flow Through the Product
| Surface | Uses labels for |
|---|---|
| Alerts view | Sort and filter by impact; highlight alerts on critical assets |
| ACL editor | Restrict rule targets by security levels |
| Detection | Tune rule sensitivity — noisier rules only fire on lower-impact assets |
| Log export | Forward high-impact streams to the SIEM, archive the rest |
Keeping the Matrix Accurate
The risk matrix is only useful if it reflects current reality. A few habits that keep it honest:
- Review quarterly — walk through
criticalandhighassets with the asset owner. - Tie to change control — onboarding a new production asset should set impact before the asset goes live.
- Purge stale labels — the monthly missing-asset report (see Detection and alerts) is a good moment to remove tags from decommissioned devices.