The Basics of Network Security
There’s been enough films and TV shows about cyberattacks to tell us how grave these threats could be. If a single person working on a single laptop could be enough to wipe out the entire power grid of a city, just imagine if they were stronger in power and resources. It would be total anarchy. To halt this problem at the door, network security is truly essential.
Network Security and its Types
Falling under cybersecurity, network security refers to the practice of preventive measures that aim to protect the networking infrastructure from misuse, modification, malfunction, unauthorized access, destruction or improper disclosure. Typically, managed IT services in Silver Spring involve physically protecting network devices from external threats along with securing the virtual network. It’s basically designed to safeguard the usability and integrity of your network and data.
To give you an idea, here’s a quick run-through of the 10 different types of network security options that managed IT services in Silver Spring can offer.
- Firewalls - As the most commonly known network security protocol, this puts a barrier between you and untrusted outside networks like the World Wide Web.
- Anti-virus and anti-malware software - These programs stop viruses and malware when they try to enter by scanning them first. This also holds intruders such as viruses, worms, Trojans, and spyware.
- Email security - Emails are where victims are most susceptible to hacking. Attackers utilize a person’s personal information to create campaigns that ultimately trick people. Usually, they send links that their victims can’t resist and then they’re redirected to a site that has malware.
- Access Control - With this option, unauthorized users and devices would be blocked from accessing your network. Meaning, only users with access would be able to work within it.
- Application Security - This network security option can locate vulnerabilities within your system which attackers could use to infiltrate your network. It includes hardware, software and other IT-related processes.
- Virtual Private Networks (VPN) - VPNs use the internet to encrypt connections from an endpoint to a network.
- Network Segmentation - This approach divides a single network into many segments that can act as its own little network. Using this, administrators can easily monitor the activity and flow of traffic between networks.
- Behavioral analytics - Tools that detect abnormal network behavior are used for behavioral analytics so you could identify potential threats.
- Data loss prevention - Data loss prevention can stop people from uploading critical and sensitive information in an unsafe way.
- Mobile device security - Since more people are using mobiles, companies would have to control the specific devices that can gain access to their networks.
What Network Security Defeats
With the advancement of technology, cyberattacks have managed to keep up with the times as well. They have become more intricate, well-designed, and extensive which make them much more difficult to be stopped. These attacks are usually categorized into two, namely: active and passive.
Active attacks are aggressive and highly malicious, locking out users out of their own network. Hackers get a hold of their network and can do anything like editing or destroying files. On the other hand, passive attacks do not affect system resources. Hackers could only be an onlooker or observer of the plain text exchange happening between two people. Sensitive information such as bank account numbers can be taken from there which is why it’s a good thing that managed IT service providers can help in keeping these intruders at bay.
Why Network Security is Important
With everything set up in the cloud on various networks, it’s terribly easy to have data breaches and hacks. To maintain the integrity and safety of your data, you must protect it at all costs. The best way to do this is to employ a network security protocol from your trusted managed IT services in Silver Spring. Surely, they would have adequate protective measures that can keep your proprietary information secured from cyber-attacks, and save your reputation in the process.
Conclusion
Just knowing the basics about network security isn’t enough. To be able to fully protect yourself from malicious hackers who are trying to harvest your information, you have to gain an in-depth knowledge of this field of study and choose the appropriate managed IT services in Silver Spring. If you don’t, life might imitate art on this one and the result won’t be the good kind.
Swift Systems provide excellent network security to secure your business against intruders. To get the best managed IT services, get in touch with us today by calling at (301) 682-5100!