Computer networks are the tool for connecting any device that can communicate. The largest network in existence today is the Internet, and it extends all over the world.
We could define computer security as the set of measures to protect hardware, software, information, and people. Computer network security is essential in today’s highly interconnected world, and many of our daily activities are carried out using computer networks. Protecting computer networks is therefore absolutely critical and crucial.
Computer threats to users are many and ever-evolving. Without getting too technical, we can list the main ones:
- Malware: software is specifically written to perform malicious actions without the user’s knowledge;
- Phishing: techniques capable of tricking the user into believing that he is on a “legitimate” website such as an online bank or the portal to check his email and the like. The user will trust the website and insert his credentials which, in reality, will be sent to a hacker. Phishing is one of the most common methods of infection and also one of the most dangerous.
For companies, the leading IT threats are DoS and DDoS attacks.
- DoS is the acronym for “Denial of Service” and is usually launched against web servers. DoS attacks “flood” a server with requests, which cannot recognize which of these requests come from real people and which are automatic and uses up the available resources trying to serve them all.
By receiving too many requests, the web server can no longer perform its function. DoS attacks are technically simple to perform and occur continuously against the most prominent companies; in fact, there are surprising cases. In addition, there are defense techniques against DoS attacks that make it possible to “mitigate” the effects by making DoS attacks much less effective or very costly for the attacker.
- On the other hand, DDoS attacks have the same objective as DoS attacks: denial of service, but on a different scale. DoS attacks are carried out by one attacker, whereas DDoS attacks are “distributed” (hence the first “D”), i.e., carried out by several attackers. It is irrelevant that the “mind” behind a DDoS attack is always the same; the issue is only technical.
If we focus on the elements to be protected, we will talk about the following types of IT security:
- Hardware Security: this refers to protecting physical elements, including uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), firewalls or hardware firewalls, and hardware security modules (HSM).
- Software security: this concept refers to the protection of software against hacker attacks. It includes cases of buffer overflows, design or implementation defects, among others.
Computer network security is a subtype of cybersecurity mainly related to network data protection (preventing information from being modified or stolen).
Examples of risks covered by computer network security would be hackers, viruses, identity theft, zero-hour attacks, denial of service, spyware, or adware. The danger in these cases is the type of complexity (an infected and networked element makes propagation to other computers quick and easy).
Combining these types of IT security are different layers that allow the mitigation of risks of attacks or loss of information. Therefore, they must be seen as a whole, not as separate elements.
The different types of IT security are aimed at ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.
The types of protection, depending on the point in time at which the control occurs, can be classified as preventive/proactive (e.g., encrypting information, proxy, antivirus, and firewall) or detective/passive (e.g., backups in case of data loss, uninterruptible power supply systems and network storage systems).
Furthermore, these elements must be aligned with the strategies and needs of the business and focused on reducing those threats outside the organization’s risk appetite.
This control structure may seem costly, but the reality is that the risk of information loss can be much more expensive.
