Network security is a fine process where preventive software and physical measures are taken for protecting the underlying networking infrastructure from any foreign or unauthorized malfunction, destruction, misuse, access, modification, or inaccurate disclosure. These measures create a strong platform for users, computers, and programs to carry on with their permitted and critical functions inside a safe and secure environment.
Usually, network security comprises 3 main strategies:
- Protection: This implies you must configure your networks and systems accurately
- Detection: Which states you should be capable of identifying in case there is a change in configuration or when you discover any network traffic
- Reaction: Which states that after you identify the problems, you need to respond to them thereby returning to a safe state immediately.
To sum up, this is a defense-in-depth strategy. In case you organize your defense properly, you can still be left with resources to expel and regroup them. Hence, to implement this, there are several techniques of network security that you need to have a look at!
CCNP makes use of the following techniques to secure a network. This guide speaks about how CCNP security implies diverse techniques to secure networking devices. Without any further discussion, read the listed techniques in this guide to learn about the strategies that CISCO uses.
CCNP techniques:
- Access control: You must be able to block all unauthorized devices and users to have access to your network. Users having network access will work with a restricted set of resources specifically for which they have been authorized.
- Anti-malware: Malware as Worms, trojans, viruses, etc can definitely spread across your network and infect your machines. In such cases, your security effort must provide its best to stop the initial infection thereby rooting out the malware.
- Application security: Applications that are insecure are referred to as vectors through which attackers obtain access to your network. Hence, you must employ software, hardware, and security processes to lock each of your apps.
- Behavioral analytics: You must be aware of normal network behavior. This will help you spot the breaches or anomalies during it takes place.
- Data loss prevention: Humans are the most insecure security link. Hence, you are required to incorporate processes and technologies to prevent the staffers from sending sensitive and essential data outside the network.
- Email security: One of the most common ways for attackers to obtain access to your network is through phishing. With email security tools, you get the power to block both outbound messages and incoming attacks with sensitive data.
- Firewalls: Firewalls are the boss of network security. Following all the rules that you allow or deny at the border, they create an obstruction between the wild west and trusted zone outside. Although they don’t prevent the need for a defensive and robust in-depth strategy, they are undoubtedly a must-have.
- Intrusion detection and prevention: These systems hold the power to scan the network traffic thoroughly for identifying and blocking all the attacks ideally by corresponding the network activity along with the databases of familiar attack techniques.
- Mobile device and wireless security: Usually the wireless devices hold strong security flaws of random networked gadgets. However, they can even connect to just any wireless network at any place provided that it gets additional scrutiny.
- Network segmentation: Software-defined segmentation instills network traffic in multiple classifications thereby enforcing the security policies to be easier.
- Security information and event management (SIEM): These products ideally aim to bring information collected from multiple network tools automatically for providing you help with the data in identifying and responding to threats.
- VPN: A VPN is a tool that is generally based on SSL or IPsec. It authenticates and facilitates the interaction between a secure network and a device to create an encrypted and secure tunnel across the open Internet.
- Web security: You must be able to monitor the web use of internal staff for blocking all the potential web-based threats to make use of browsers as a vector to cause harm to your network.
With this, now you know the varied essential techniques that CCNP uses to secure all the networking devices.
