Internet
security is crucial for business as it offers them protection from cyber criminal attacks
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Network Security
What is Network Security?
Network security encompasses the range of measures which a company may establish in order to protect its data, intellectual property and IT systems. Such systems prevent internal and external access to the company by unauthorised users, and focus on protecting data resources from malware attack, viruses, spyware or simple mistakes made by individuals within the organisation.
Firewalls are amongst the most common apparatus used to prevent unauthorised access to your IT systems. They are deployed in the form of hardware appliance, software or a combination of both. Firewalls operate with pre-defined rules which either block or allow different types of network traffic. Commonly deployed within SME’s at the ‘edge of the network’, firewalls are the gateway to the internet; they are the single route into and out of your corporate network. It is critical that these devices are kept up to date and monitored to ensure the integrity of your IT systems.
Once within the corporate network, appropriate network security is achieved when a user is required to go through a number of layers of security before gaining access to network resources. The process commences by authenticating the user, usually with a username and a password. In addition to the user name, only one further item is required, ie the password, which is something you 'know'; this is sometimes termed ‘one factor authentication’.
With two factor authentication something you 'have' is also required (eg a security token, 'dongle' or your mobile phone). With three factor authentication something you 'are' is used, which also takes into account the use of Biometrics (eg a fingerprint or retinal scan) in order to authenticate you to a network. Three factor authentication is far beyond what most SME’s require however biometric (fingerprint) hardware is now commonplace on devices such as laptops.
