What is Network Security and How Important is it?

Network Security protects your network and data from breaches, intrusions and other threats. This is a vast and overarching term that describes hardware and software solutions as well as processes or rules and configurations relating to network use, accessibility, and overall threat protection.
Network seciurity covers a variety of networks, both public and private that are used in everyday jobs conducting transactions
Network Security involves access control, virus and antivirus software, application security, network analytics, types of network-related security (endpoint, web, wireless), firewalls, VPN encryption and more.

Types of Network Security Protections

Firewall

Firewalls control incoming and outgoing traffic on networks, with predetermined security rules. Firewalls keep out unfriendly traffic and is a necessary part of daily computing. Network Security relies heavily on Firewalls, and especially Next Generation Firewalls, which focus on blocking malware and application-layer attacks..

Network Segmentation

Network segmentation defines boundaries between network segments where assets within the group have a common function, risk or role within an organization. For instance, the perimeter gateway segments a company network from the Internet. Potential threats outside the network are prevented, ensuring that an organization’s sensitive data remains inside. Organizations can go further by defining additional internal boundaries within their network, which can provide improved security and access control.

Remote Access VPN

Remote access VPN provides remote and secure access to a company network to individual hosts or clients, such as telecommuters, mobile users, and extranet consumers. Each host typically has VPN client software loaded or uses a web-based client. Privacy and integrity of sensitive information is ensured through multi-factor authentication, endpoint compliance scanning, and encryption of all transmitted data.

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

The zero trust security model states that a user should only have the access and permissions that they require to fulfill their role. This is a very different approach from that provided by traditional security solutions, like VPNs, that grant a user full access to the target network. Zero trust network access (ZTNA) also known as software-defined perimeter (SDP) solutions permits granular access to an organization’s applications from users who require that access to perform their duties.

Email Security

Email security refers to any processes, products, and services designed to protect your email accounts and email content safe from external threats. Most email service providers have built-in email security features designed to keep you secure, but these may not be enough to stop cybercriminals from accessing your information.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Data loss prevention (DLP) is a cybersecurity methodology that combines technology and best practices to prevent the exposure of sensitive information outside of an organization, especially regulated data such as personally identifiable information (PII) and compliance related data: HIPAA, SOX, PCI DSS, etc.

Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)

IPS technologies can detect or prevent network security attacks such as brute force attacks, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and exploits of known vulnerabilities. A vulnerability is a weakness for instance in a software system and an exploit is an attack that leverages that vulnerability to gain control of that system. When an exploit is announced, there is often a window of opportunity for attackers to exploit that vulnerability before the security patch is applied. An Intrusion Prevention System can be used in these cases to quickly block these attacks.

Sandboxing

Sandboxing is a cybersecurity practice where you run code or open files in a safe, isolated environment on a host machine that mimics end-user operating environments. Sandboxing observes the files or code as they are opened and looks for malicious behavior to prevent threats from getting on the network. For example malware in files such as PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint can be safely detected and blocked before the files reach an unsuspecting end user.

Hyperscale Network Security

Hyperscale is the ability of an architecture to scale appropriately, as increased demand is added to the system. This solution includes rapid deployment and scaling up or down to meet changes in network security demands. By tightly integrating networking and compute resources in a software-defined system, it is possible to fully utilize all hardware resources available in a clustering solution.

Cloud Network Security

Applications and workloads are no longer exclusively hosted on-premises in a local data center. Protecting the modern data center requires greater flexibility and innovation to keep pace with the migration of application workloads to the cloud. Software-defined Networking (SDN) and Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solutions enable network security solutions in private, public, hybrid and cloud-hosted Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) deployments.

Why Network Security is Important

Here’s why both businesses and households should consider the security of their networks seriously:

1.To protect the computers in the network

Computers and other devices connected to unsecured networks are highly vulnerable to external threats such as malware, ransomware and spyware attacks. A single attack can bring down the entire computer system of an organization and compromise your personal information. By assuring the security of the network – typically with the assistance of a network security specialist – you can stay away from such expensive threats.

2.To prevent identity theft

No matter whether you are an organization or an individual, your identity is valuable. If you log into an unsecured network, your identity can become visible to third-parties. To avoid such a situation, you should secure your network. Such an approach becomes mandatory if you are a business that deals with client information.

3.To protect shared data

When it comes to a business, special precautions should be taken to protect shared data. And, network security is one of the best ways to do so. Network security can be applied with different restrictions on different computers depending on the types of files they handle.

4.To stabilize the network connection

In an unrestricted, unprotected network, network activity can become too heavy. Intense traffic can lead to an unstable computer network. Eventually, the entire network will become vulnerable to various external attacks.