Network Security

What is network security? 

Network security is the protection of an organization or enterprise’s network infrastructure from unauthorized access, misuse, or theft. The three components that makeup network security systems are hardware, software, and cloud services.  

How does network security work? 

Securing a network centers on two basic tenets: authentication and authorization. The goal of the authentication function is to confirm every user in your network is authentic, meaning they are permitted to be there, and then you need to make sure that each user within your network is authorized to access the specific data that they are attempting to access. 

How do I benefit from network security? 

Network security is most critical today due to the rapidly changing cyber network security threat landscape. Hackers, disgruntled, and untrained employees all pose security threats to enterprises and must be handled with a proper defense.

Benefits of network security solutions for organizations: 

• Minimizes the level of risk for attacks, infections, and breaches;
• Keeps sensitive or personal data away from unauthorized individuals;
• Protects confidential data to prevent legal issues;
• Increases the longevity of computers and devices;
• Offers a closed environment protected from the internet;
• Builds trust and boosts client and consumer confidence; and 
• Enables a more modern workplace and the ability to scale the business. 

What are the types of network security?

There are a variety of network security tools you can incorporate into your services. Here’s a list of network security solutions and tactics for your organization to leverage: 

• Access control: Controls where users have access to sensitive sections of the network. These security policies are capable of restricting network access to only certified users and recognized devices. 
• Anti-virus and anti-malware software: Monitors network traffic in real time for malware, scans activity log files for signs of suspicious behavior or long-term patterns, and offers threat remediation capabilities. 
• Application security: Monitors issues and improves security coverage with an amalgamation of hardware, software, and actions.
• Behavioral analytics: Identifies common indicators of abnormal behavior, which in most cases means a security breach has occurred. By having a better sense of each customer’s baselines, service providers can more quickly spot problems and isolate threats.
• Data loss prevention: Consists of the strategies, procedures, and tactics implemented to ensure endpoint users don’t intentionally or unknowingly share sensitive information outside of a corporate network.  
• Email security: Filters out incoming threats and can also be configured to prevent outgoing messages from sharing certain forms of data. 
• Firewall protection: Restricts users from accessing your network, stopping suspicious traffic from accessing the network while simultaneously allowing legitimate traffic to flow through. 
• Network segmentation: Divides and sorts network traffic to streamline the job for security support personnel to apply rules, regulations, and procedures. Network segmentation enables assign or deny authorization credentials for employees and helps to isolate compromised devices or intrusions. 
• Security information and event management (SIEM): Merges host and network-based intrusion detection systems that integrate network traffic monitoring with historical data log file scanning to give administrators a full picture of all activity within the network’s environment.
• Web security software: Limits internet access for employees, with the intention of preventing them from accessing sites that could contain malware. In addition, it blocks web-based threats and protects a customer’s web gateway.  
• Wireless security: Protects unauthorized access and malicious attempts to a wireless or Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi is highly susceptible to hacking if weak wireless protocols are enabled. A wireless network designed with current wireless security protocols, such as WPA2 can deter cyber-attacks. 
• Virtual Private Network (VPN): Utilizes encrypted connections over the internet from a device to a network. The VPN provides a secure tunnel between the VPN client and the organization’s VPN server, which prevents the cyber attacker from seeing sensitive information. One of the main benefits of a VPN is that when you’re connected to the internet via a VPN, websites cannot see your real IP address. All that can be seen is the IP address of the VPN server.