- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
What is ACL?
ACL stands for Access Control List and it is one of the most fundamental components of information security. It is made up of some 'rules' that would allow or deny access to a computerized environment.
For example, you are a manager of an exclusive club and have made a list of club's members and selected few guests who are invited to a party. When you strictly follow the LIST you have made up of your members & guests, then only those on this list are allowed in the doors. Right?
Access Control List is very much similar to this. It enable you to ensure that, unless the proper credentials are presented by the device or user, it cannot gain access in your environment, e.g., your network or system.
At the fundamental level, there are two basic kinds of ACLs:
1. Filesystem ACLs
These ACLs give instructions to the operating system of your computers, servers, etc. as to what types of users are allowed to access the system. These instructions also define the users' privileges they are entitled to when they are inside. Thus, these Filesystem ACLs works as filters and manage users' access to your directories or files.
2. Networking ACLs
Networking ACLs do the similar thing, as they manage users' access to your network. Likewise, they provide instructions to switches and routers, so as to manage the kinds of traffic that would be allowed to interface with your network. They also define what your users' or devices can do once they are inside your network.
When ACLs were first conceived, they worked like firewalls, and were used to block network access to unwanted entities. Even today, ACLs are quite common among companies. You may find network admins using them along with VPNs. They might be dictating which kinds of traffic get encrypted and then sent through the secure tunnel of the VPN.
-
Network ACLs
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
When devices on your corporate LANs need to connect to other devices, they need a standard method for identifying each other to ensure they are communicating with the device they want to, and that's what 802.1x does.
What is 802.1x authentication?
Whether you are connecting to your LAN or WAN, you require an authentication mechanism to get connected. And, this mechanism is provided by IEEE standard known a 802.1x.
802.1x is a standard for PORT-BASED network access control and it provides you authentication for secure access to networks.
All possible ways of authentication ensure that something which interface with the network system is actually what it claims 'it is.' 802.1x is no exception. There are many variants of it, e.g., 802.11, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n etc. Whenever you want to gain access to a network using any of these, it acts as a protocol that would verify that you are what you say 'you are.' It works for both wireless and wired devices.
If your organisation is dealing with highly-valuable and sensitive information, then you can depend upon 802.1x as a secure method of transporting your data over the network. It is used so that your devices can communicate securely with access points (or enterprise-grade routers). It is being used almost everywhere.
802.1X is often referred to as WPA2-Enterprise.
-
What are key component of 802.1x Authentication?
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
You all know that FTP is File Transfer Protocol. Basically, FTP is a group of rules that governs how computers would transfer your files between systems over the internet. It is quite common to see companies using FTP to upload files on other end, or websites using FTP for uploading and downloading files from webservers.
It works by simultaneously opening 2-connections that link the computers which are attempting to communicate with each other. First connection is designated for the 'commands' and 'replies' that are sent to/from these two clients. Second, connection handles the actual transfer of your data.
Regardless of your clients whether they are computers, servers, or proxy servers, there are 4-commands that are used during the FTP transmission of your data:
1. Send
2. Get
3. Change Directory
4. Transfer
As far as the transmission of data is concerned, there are 3-modes:
A. Stream mode
This mode enables FTP to manage information in a string of data without any boundaries between them.
B. Block mode
This mode separates your data into BLOCKS.
C. Compress mode
In this mode, FTP transmission happen after compressing your data using an algorithm, viz., Lempel-Ziv algorithm.
The primary purpose of using FTP over other methods is to perform 'Large' sized file transfers. Because when you use FTP, you can send 100s of GB data at once and still you can a smooth transmission. Companies know that this can greatly enhance their workflows. How?
Your workflows are greatly enhanced because with FTP you can send 'multiple files at once.' You can select several files and then send them all at the same time. If you don't use FTP, then you will have to send them one by one. This may stop you doing other works simultaneously. Right?
Even if it takes 15-20 minutes to send a file, your FTP can handle it smoothly, making you free to attend other tasks.
-
What Are Various Types of FTP ?
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
You already know that SD-WAN allows your remote sites to connect more easily to your corporate network, data centers, and/or multiple-clouds services. You get the benefits of lower latency, better performance, and more reliable connectivity.
It is a good to revisit the evolution of modern SD-WAN...
Software Defined Networking and SD-WAN technologies have evolved slowly over the course of last 2-n-half decades. Older and senior networking guys have seen the days when they were working with earlier networking solutions. You would remember that Point-To-Point (PPP) Leased-lines were the original mode for connecting multiple LANS. Then you saw the emergence of Frame Relay (FR) technologies. When Frame Relay came, it practically removed the need of buying and managing 'individual' connecting links between various corporate branches. And then, MPLS.
When MPLS came in early years of 2000s, it soon overtook frame relay in popularity, because it was capable of LEVERAGING Internet Protocol (IP)-based technology. Before MPLS your data, your voice, and your video would traverse on separate IP networks. But MPLS changed all this, as it was perfectly capable of brining voice, video, and data networking onto the SAME NETWORK still using the IP. As far enterprise WANs are concerned, they are still using MPLS, as it is still revered for its benefits of reduced latency and QoS. There is no denial to that.
Around 2013, SD-WAN was born...
As MPLS brought more advantages over frame relay, SD-WAN brought more advantages over MPLS. What you need to remember here is that --
SD-WANs deliver you the same Quality of Service (QoS) as is expected from MPLS, but at the significantly lower costs to your company. SD-WANs are far more easier to scale too. SD-WAN can handle a variety of connections and dynamically move traffic over the best transport available, and can provide both redundancy and much more capacity using lower-cost links.
If you consider the time to installation and time to service delivery, SD-WAN solutions from key security vendors is significantly cheaper than MPLS overall. When you would start researching the SD-WAN solutions in the market, then you would find out that top-level SD-WAN solutions are offering you, what they say, Zero Touch provisioning, meaning that you will be able to bring on your remote sites (networks) quickly and you won't require any networking or security expert to be on-site for installation.
-
What about Security of SD-WAN?
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
What is Ethernet Switching?
As you know that most corporate networks use a combination of switches, routers, hubs, and wired & wireless-technologies. In this post, I am revisiting the ethernet switching...
Ethernet switching is about connecting your wired devices, e.g., computers, laptops, servers, printers, etc. to your LAN. Since ethernet switches offer you multiple ports, you can easily establish a faster connectivity and smooth access to multiple devices simultaneously.
You won't find a single corporate network where ethernet switches have not been installed. They are essential to create your networks.
However, ethernet switches are fundamentally very different from routers. Routers connect 'networks' and primarily use only a single LAN and WAN port. Routers connect networks to other networks, most commonly connecting LANs to WANs. Routers are usually placed at the gateway between networks and route data packets along the network. Right?
A network administrator, is expected to provide you fully wired and Wi-Fi connectivity using a right combination of devices, switches and access-points.
Hubs are almost gone, and not seen very frequently in corporate networks. Reason of their decline was that they were there to SHARE the bandwidth equally among ports. Contrarily, you can use ethernet switches to devote more bandwidth to certain ports without degrading the performance of your network. Experienced IT guys know that when many devices are active on a LAN, ethernet switching provides more robust performance.
You can connect dozens of devices to a network using an Ethernet switch. Ethernet switches allows you to monitor traffic, to control communications among machines, to securely manage access of network users, and rapidly troubleshoot.
You can easily find a right solution (switches) which is best fit for your network, as you can select from wide variety of switches. You can buy plug-n-play switches to feature-rich Gigabit Ethernet switches that actually perform at higher speeds than wireless options.
-
How Do Ethernet Switches Work?
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
You need to recall that ...
Everything that is sent from one computer to the another computer that is there on the network, is divided into smaller pieces. These smaller pieces of data in any form, are called 'Packets'.
Whether you are sending an email, or opening a web-page in your browser, or watching a movie on Netflix, or uploading a video on YouTube, everything is being sent or received in a series of Packets. At the destination terminals or systems, these packets are then re-assembled and then displayed on the screen or stored at the system.
Each packet has an attached header that contains all the information about -- where the packet is from and where it is going, including its destination IP address (like the address on a piece of mail). In order to make a packet to reach its intended destination, ROUTERS have to forward it from one network to the next until it finally arrives at the network that contains its destination IP address. That network will then forward the packet to that address and the associated device. It is the jobs of routers throughout the journey of packets, to forward them to next router in the next network.
Before routers can forward a packet to its final IP address, they must first determine where the packet needs to go. Routers do this by referencing and maintaining a 'ROUTING TABLE,' which tells them how to forward each packet. Each router examines the packet's headers, consults its internal routing table, and forwards the packet to the next network. A router in the next network goes through the same process, and the process is repeated until the packet arrives at its destination.
This approach to routing works so very well for most purposes. In fact, the most of the Internet actually runs using IP addresses and routing tables. However, your users or your organization may want their data to travel FASTER over paths you can directly control, especially in case of enterprise-wide Branch-to-HQ connectivity. And MPLS does this job beautifully...
-
What is MPLS?
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
What is RADIUS protocol?
RADIUS stands for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service. It is networking protocol that authorizes and authenticates users who access a remote network.
It is a de facto industry standard for controlling the remote access of users to your network.
RADIUS performs three basic functions:
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
You have been deploying NGFWs as appliances to protect your computers, systems and the network. You might have been using physical and virtual versions of these firewalls in most cases and deployed on premises or cloud. However, you were to support these during the entire life-cycle of these appliances.If you had distributed networks spread over distributed locations then you needed dedicated appliances that have to be sized and upgraded to accommodate your business growth. You had been doing the upgradation or patching of those yourself and you had to do 'policy management' for each devices.
Now a days, most security vendors have come up a new and revolutionary way of delivering firewall and other network security capabilities as a cloud service, viz., Firewall as a service (FWaaS).
-
What is a FWaaS?
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
What is Data Integrity?
In the hindsight, it is a very simple concept. You always want to your data accurately describe (something) as it is intended to.
Thus, the data integrity is about the accuracy and consistent 'validity' of your data over its entire lifecycle. If at any point your data loses its accuracy and validity, then what is the use of this data? Nothing, it's junk!
There have been 2-ways of looking at data integrity:
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
What is a SSL Certificate?
An Secure Sockets Layer (SLL) certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates the identity of a website and encrypts information sent to the webserver using SSL technology.
When your website has a SSL Certificate, every interaction the people and companies have with your website, remain PRIVATE. For example, your customers may be sharing their 'Personal Info' such as names, addresses, etc. when its demanded by your website. Your customers may also be sharing other transactional details such as credit card numbers, or other financial details, etc with you via your website. The SSL Certificate of your website will help you and them to keep this information secure, and private between them and your website.
- Details
- Written by: Meena
- Category: Cybersecurity PRISM
What is Datacenter Security?
Datacenter security is an assortment of technological and physical measures which are used to protect a datacenter's assets and resources, thereby shielding it from all sorts of internal and external threats.
You should always design a comprehensive security plan that covers all important aspects of your datacenter, e.g., the networks, servers, power-systems, and the DATA and the PROCESSES they support.
You should take full cognition of 'specific' security threats that are usually faced by datacenters, because your datacenter, in fact all datacenters, are highly lucrative targets for most cyber-criminals.
Your datacenter is always the backbone of your business. It does not matter, if you use your datacenter for storage, or disaster-recovery, or for supporting business applications, the vast computational workloads of your datacenter is THE MOST critical resource of whole IT infrastructure your company operates with.
In the hindsight, your company's sensitive information and business-critical applications are a treasure trove of opportunity for hackers and other threats.
Whether you believe or not, your datacenter is a trusted component of your organization’s infrastructure. Your company is depending upon your datacenter assets to provide a SAFETY NET when everything else goes wrong. That's why the security of your datacenter is extremely vital.
In a way, a secure data center ensures the 'Business Continuity' and gives your company a confidence that you can focus on growing your businesses without worrying about the safety of your digital assets.
-
How Can You Secure Your Datacenter?
Read more: What is Datacenter Security? How Can You Secure Your Datacenter?
- What is ICS Security? How can you achieve ICS security?
- What is White Hat Security? How To Learn White Hat Hacking?
- What is SAML? How is SAML different from OAuth?
- What is DMZ Network? How Does A DMZ Network Work?
- Why is basic Firewall Configuration so important? How To Configure A Firewall Properly?
- What is DNS Leak? How can a DNS Leak happen?
- What is AAA Framework? Importance of AAA to Network Access Control.....
- What is Data Governance? What are fundamental principles of Data Governance?
- What is an Attack Vector? Different Types of Attack Vectors.....
- What is DevSecOps? How is it Different from DevOps?
IT PANORAMAApplication Platform Optimization
|
CYBER WARRIOR'S
|
CERTIFICATIONSCCNA CCNP - Project & Assignment Help |
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANCYLean Six Sigma Certification Training LSS Black Belt Program (On-site) LSS Green Belt Program (On-site)
|
BLOGS |
CONTACT US
© 2013 Luminis Consulting Services P Ltd, IN |