6 Small to Medium Sized Network Security Solution part 6

Research shows that the typical small to medium sized network is not secure and is susceptible to intrusion by factions with bad intent. Lack of awareness of the true nature of the risk is the greatest obstacle to overcome. New vulnerabilities are discovered every day. How will we address this?

Every IT project should begin with two questions:

1. What business problem are we trying to solve?

2. Does everyone agree it’s worth the effort to solve it?

Here we have helped to solve the problem of security vulnerabilities in a small to medium sized network. The same ignorance of these vulnerabilities exists from a typical home network, to a SOHO, to an SMB size network. In each case important personal information and reputation are at risk including monetary assets.

This report represents an effort to educate the public and provide a reasonable path towards an affordable security solution. It should be noted that the enterprise class security solutions are starting to reach out to the SMB sector. They are trying to fill the gap between what is effective and affordable to a typical SMB size network. Still this sector must also be educated, even convinced that if they do not take some action they will remain at risk. The solution I have proposed will merit the consideration of these same SMB’s although it will target more closely a home to a SOHO size network.

Here, I would like to succinctly address the nature of the beast we are facing. Addressing network security involves three factors: vulnerability, threat, and attack.

The primary vulnerabilities are technological, configuration, and security policy weaknesses. Technological vulnerabilities include protocols, operating systems, and network equipment. Configuration vulnerabilities involve laxity on the part of the administration. Due diligence requires that the administrator do everything possible to correctly configure and protect the network in his charge. Security policy weaknesses include not having a clear cut written policy and not following it if you do… or not enforcing it, as they need may be. Network policy informs users, staff, and managers of their obligatory requirements for protecting technology and information assets, specifies the mechanisms through which these requirements are met, and provides a baseline from which to acquire, configure, and audit computers and networks for compliance.

On to the four types of attacks, reconnaissance, access, denial of service (DOS, and worms, viruses, Trojan horses. Reconnaissance involves Internet information lookup, Ping sweeps, Port scans, and Packet sniffers. Access attacks include password cracking, trust exploitation, port redirection, man – in – the – middle. DOS overwhelms system resources via ping of death, SYN flood, email bombs, malicious applets. Last would be various types of malware which compromise a system of systems in various ways… many serious.

Lastly, we have threats. These include structured, unstructured, internal, and external. Here we have a taste of what is out there and a way to categorize them for more effective defense management. We can see that this is an ugly animal with many heads.

Does everyone agree it is worth the effort to solve it? Is it worth the effort to lock your door when you go to bed at night? There will always be an ongoing need for risk mitigation regardless of the size network we are on just as the need to mitigate the risk of crime in the physical world remains. The question is are you ready? We shall see in our next section.