Why is Network Security Important?

When the internet evolves and the size of the computer networks become larger and larger day-by-day, everyone concerns much about network security to make sure about data integrity as it is essential to secure every aspect of data and information. Let’s take a look at why this network security is so important in today’s world.

What is Network Security?

Network security is the most essential aspect used when working over the internet, though the business is big or small. As no network can not immune to attacks, it is essential to maintain a stable and efficient network security system to secure your data. By increasing the network security, you may decrease the possibility of privacy spoofing, information or identity theft and so on. It provides protection to prevent MiM attacks by categorizing information, then encrypting and transmitting them through independent paths. Thus network security helps in protecting data from harmful spyware and ensures the security of shared data. As today most of the malicious users don’t want a high-level programming skill and just want only the ability to use tools on the internet, they can carry out an attack successfully. When talking about these malicious users, most probably the very first name that comes to your mind is HACKER. So let's see who is this ‘hacker’ really is.

According to the definition of a hacker, a hacker is an individual who has strong programming skills and involves in developing new methods to protect networks against attacks. What?? Now your mind will ask what! Is the hacker the one who protect the networks from attacks? Then why we address them as hackers and why we have a bad image of them?

You will get answers to all these questions by reading this article carefully.

Though when we hear the word ‘hacker’, the topic “cybercriminals” comes to our mind, a hacker is not always a bad fellow. Indeed, a hacker is just an individual who uses his deep knowledge and skills to overcome a challenge. As there is both good and bad side to this activity, it is good to fall the word “hacker” somewhere in between.

There are several types of hackers

White hat hacker: The person who has ethical computer security knowledge and works with organizations or ethical hacking groups to find vulnerabilities in cybersecurity and fix them without taking any advantages of them.

Black hat hacker: This is the person who has caused to create a bad image about hackers because a black hat hacker uses his expert knowledge to break into systems and steal data. They intentionally violate computer security with the aim of theft, frauding or corporate espionage.

Grey hat hacker: The person who works as a freelancer and looks for making profits by exposing risks in a security structure of an organization and offering to correct them for a fee.

In simply, if I consider a Western American movie, people who wear white hats are the heroes of the story and those who wear black hats are the villains of the story.

Types of Network Security Attacks

Assuming that you are already aware of network security attacks like virus, worm and trojan horses, I will discuss here other types of cyber-attacks which are not very familiar for most of the people, but you are experiencing frequently.

1. Phishing

This attacks reached like emails, creating a sense of urgency to act on it by user and purposing as from known resources like bankers. That email has consisted of a malicious link, information or attachment and it may ask you to share your confidential details as well.

2. Botnet

The botnet is a kind of network of private computers. That network is a victim of malicious software and the attacker can control all the computers included in the network without the owner’s knowledge. Therefore when a computer is attacked by Botnet, that computer is known as a Zombie and it spreads and infects a large number of devices.

3. DoS

DoS stands for Denial of Service and it is a crucial attack that can destroy a victim network or an entire infrastructure fully or partially. The DoS attacks can be categorized as connection flooding, vulnerability attack and bandwidth flooding. These attacks always take advantage of network traffics and create some kind of abnormal behaviour to network services and applications.

4. Man-in-the-middle

This is like when we continue a conversation with someone, a third party listens to it and reveal our private information through it. In there, by being in the middle as a third party, the attacker captures, controls, and monitors your works and communications effectively.

5. Eavesdropping

This attack is also somewhat similar to the above-mentioned man in the middle attack but the main difference is, when the receiver receives some data, this attack has already changed it to a different thing. Therefore we say that this attack uses a malicious user to gain critical information from listening to particular network traffic. As most of the communications are sent without doing encryption, there are many opportunities for traffic disruptions.

6. Ransomware

This is something, most people have been experiencing constantly for the past few years and it was a popular topic in the media as well. Actually, ransomware is a heavy malicious software installed by hackers by taking over a single network device or an entire network to encrypt all the files. Once the files are encrypted, users are unable to access those files at all until the asking ransom is paid. They will ask a big money to decrypt your data and failure to pay that money will be ended in the deletion of all your encrypted data and files.

According to reported statistics about malware attacks in the past few years, Purplesec USA company has published this graph.

Further, they mention that Recent malware attacks have become more sophisticated with the advent of machine learning and targeted spear-phishing emails.

Now I can give direct answers to the questions

What makes Network Security so important?

• To protect the computers in the network
• To prevent identity theft
• To protect shared data
• To stabilize the network connection

What are the types of Network Security?

• Network Access Control
• Antivirus and Antimalware software
• Firewall protection
• Virtual Private Networks
• Application security
• Data loss prevention
• Distributed denial of service prevention
• Email security
• Mobile devices security
• Security information and event management

Thank you for reading my article.