Network security is the organization’s strategy and position to ensure the security of its assets and all network traffic. Network security is manifested in the implementation of hardware and software security. For the purposes of this discussion, the following approach has been adopted to fully appreciate network security.

Policy

An IT security policy is a key document for network security. Its purpose is to outline the rules for ensuring the security of organizational assets. Today, employees often use several tools and applications for effective business. A culture-based policy supports these procedures and focuses on the safe provision of these tools for employees. Compliance and audit procedures for any regulatory requirements that the organization is subject to should also be specified in the policy.

Enforcement

Most network security definitions narrow down to a compliance mechanism. Decision-making concerns the analysis of all flows of network traffic and should be aimed at maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all systems and information on the network. These three principles make up the CIA triad:

 

Confidentiality - protecting assets from unauthorized persons

Integrity - Asset modification is handled in a specific and authorized manner.

Availability - the state of the system in which authorized users have continuous access to specified assets

Strong enforcement seeks to provide the CIA with network traffic flows. It starts by classifying traffic flows using the application, user, and content. As a vehicle for content, all applications must first be identified by a firewall, regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactics, or SSL. Proper identification of the application ensures full visibility of the content that it carries. Policy management can be simplified by identifying applications and matching their use with user identification while constantly monitoring content to preserve the CIA.

The concept of in depth protection is seen as the best practice in the field of network security, which provides for network protection in layers. These layers use a set of security controls to remove threats trying to enter the network: access control, identification, authentication, malware detection, encryption, file type filtering, URL filtering, and content filtering.

These layers are created by deploying firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and antivirus components. Among the components for enforcement, a firewall (access control mechanism) is the foundation of network security.

The provision by the CIA of network traffic flows is difficult using outdated technologies. Traditional firewalls suffer from controls that rely on a port / protocol to identify applications that have now developed evasive features to bypass controls, and assume that the IP address matches the user ID.

The next generation firewall retains the mission of access control, but redesigns the technology; It monitors all traffic on all ports, can classify applications and their contents, and identifies employees as users. This allows you to provide a sufficient level of access control to ensure compliance with IT security policies, as applicable to every employee of the organization, without any compromise in security.

Additional services to ensure the security of overhead networks to implement the in-depth protection strategy were included in the traditional model as additional components. Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) and antivirus, for example, are effective tools for scanning content and preventing malware attacks. However, organizations must be careful about the complexity and cost of additional components that can add to their network security and, more importantly, not be dependent on these additional components to perform the main work of the firewall.

Auditing

The network security audit process requires verification of enforcement measures to determine whether they are consistent with security policies. An audit encourages continuous improvement by requiring organizations to continually review the implementation of their policies. This enables organizations to adjust their policy and compliance strategies in areas of changing need.