What’s New in Zurich: Security Center

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The Zurich release brings major improvements to Security Center, ServiceNow’s central hub for platform security. Designed for administrators, developers, and platform owners, Security Center provides the tools you need to assess, monitor, and enhance the security posture of your ServiceNow instances.

This update focuses on three key areas: improved homepage navigation, Security Tasks, and expanded identity and access management tools — specifically the Access Analyzer and Machine Identity Console.

Overview: A Unified Security Platform

Security Center is a free, built-in application that consolidates the essential tools for securing your ServiceNow environment. It’s updated with every family release and receives mid-cycle enhancements through the ServiceNow Store.

The application’s main goals are to:

- Optimize access management through improved visibility and control.

- Maintain security posture with real-time KPIs and compliance scores.

- Improve configurations by aligning with ServiceNow’s security best practices.

- Track security events and alerts to proactively address risks.

Commonly used tools include:

- Security Hardening Compliance: Scans and scores your instance against recommended configurations.

- Security Scanner: Regularly audits for risky misconfigurations.

- Security Learning: Centralized resources and best practices documentation.

What’s New in Zurich

Improved Homepage Navigation

The Zurich (and subsequent Store) release introduces a modernized homepage with a cleaner layout and easier access to Security Center’s tools.

Key updates include:

- Direct navigation to individual tools and grouped consoles.
- A new Identity and Access Management section.
- A Security Tasks widget for monitoring assigned actions.
- Quick links to best practices, alerts, and key performance metrics.

This design allows admins to quickly understand their instance’s overall health through clear KPIs such as hardening compliance scores, threshold alerts, customer actions, and best practice adoption rates.

Security Tasks

The all-new Security Tasks feature helps teams assign, track, and manage security-related activities directly within the platform.

Admins can:

- Create and delegate tasks related to platform security.
- Assign them to team members (not limited to admins).

- Track task progress with due dates, priorities, and states.

- Export data for audits or reporting purposes.

Tasks integrate seamlessly across tools — for example, admins can create a task from the Hardening Compliance view to have another team member test a configuration in a sub-production environment.

This feature promotes structured collaboration and ensures that no critical security follow-up is missed.

Access Analyzer Enhancements

Originally introduced in the Vancouver release, Access Analyzer helps admins evaluate permissions on ServiceNow resources such as tables, REST endpoints, and UI pages.

New capabilities include:

- User access comparison: Compare access rights, roles, and group memberships between two users.

- Access simulation: Predict how adding or removing a role affects permissions before making changes.

- Granular roles: The new Access Analyzer Admin role allows broader usage beyond system administrators.

These improvements make it easier to understand and troubleshoot access control issues at a detailed level.

Machine Identity Console

The Machine Identity Console focuses on managing and securing service accounts used for inbound integrations.

Key features:

- Visibility into all machine identities, their authentication methods, and the APIs they access.

- Security scoring and findings that flag high-risk accounts (e.g., using basic authentication or dormant for months).

- Actionable recommendations to improve security posture.

- A simplified process to create new OAuth integrations, encouraging migration away from weaker authentication methods.

This tool gives admins the data they need to identify risky machine identities and adopt stronger, more secure configurations.

Takeaways

With the Zurich release, Security Center continues to evolve as the one-stop shop for managing platform security.

Key benefits include:

- Unified access to essential security tools and metrics.

- Proactive management of risks through task automation and monitoring.

- Enhanced visibility into both user and machine identities.

- Continuous improvement through updates from the ServiceNow Store between family releases.

Security Center empowers admins to move from reactive fixes to proactive, data-driven security management — helping you maintain confidence and trust in your ServiceNow environments.