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Network security

Growth and availability of the broadband internet connections gives companies new possibilities in data exchange. Nowadays it is quite common to for most businesses to use internet for emails, file downloads, perform online banking and in some cases even to interconnect geographically distributed offices into one virtual network. Global networking allows company employees always be up to date with the information which results in the overall productivity increase and quality of work.

However there is a negative side too. The major problem is network security. Wide spread use of the internet in the world results in a lack of data confidentiality. It means that some other people can try to get access to your sensitive information. It might be your competition, however in most cases it would be some other people who are simply trying to explore or destroy your IT infrastructure.

Bad news is that nowadays there are far too many software/hardware tools that allow for even unqualified person to perform some very advance attacks over the internet and if your computer network is not very well protected, you are in big trouble.

The good news however is that there are ways to protect your network and that it does not require you to have your own security specialists to maintain.

Nowadays there are two main approaches to network security:

-         Software security
-         Hardware security 

We are going to discuss each of them below. However there is one more very important aspect in your network security: it is common sense and security awareness of your employees. 

Hardware security is considered to be more reliable and stable in comparison with software, however it can only provide you with the limited protection. The most common hardware network security devices are: firewalls and proxy servers.

Firewalls can be split into two categories: stateless and state full packet filters. The main purpose of the firewall is to filter the network traffic, so that only permitted connections would be allowed.

Proxy server however is a kind of gateway that acts as an intermediary between a workstation user and the Internet so that the enterprise can ensure security, administrative control, and caching service. Once installed, hardware security devices don’t require much maintenance.  

Software security packages on the other hand can provide you with much greater protection. Generally software security packages consist of the mixture of programs to ensure maximum protection is achieved. Software is easy to update and that is why any kind of newly discovered security weakness can be quickly patched up. The downside however is that software by its nature is susceptible to virus attacks, conflicts with the other software, as well as operators mistakes.

That is why a combination of hardware/software protection is generally much stronger than any of them on its own.

If you are interested and want to organize protection of your network, assess existing network security or just get a free consultation, you are welcome to contact us via email or phone and arrange day and time for a free onsite assessment of your network.

IS YOUR NETWORK SECURE?  We can provide a check of your network and its external access to the Internet.  Our VULNERABILITY REPORT provides a graphical presentation of all detected holes and the recommend SOLUTIONS to CLOSE the HOLES.  CLICK HERE for more info.