We live in a world where the use of new technologies greatly improves the ability to communicate with other people. The Internet has been globalized at an astonishing speed and relationships in all fields change and evolve at their own pace, constantly, to be updated linux sysadmin.
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In this article, we'll take a look at what a network is and how we can run our own network effectively, from our work at home. Network security will cover the last part of the article, where we will see above how it should be to be more secure. Little by little, we will deal with more and more complex concepts so that anyone, whatever their previous knowledge, finishes the article by understanding the different concepts.
network security
Imagine what the world would be like today if the Internet did not exist . Without Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, how would our life be, what differences would there be…? I think we've all come to the same conclusion: the Internet, the network that unites us all, has improved our quality of life . What overwhelms most is to think that this expansion has no limits. What we thought impossible yesterday is today an application fully integrated into our daily lives and which we all use as normal.
The concept of human network is the interaction between the Internet, businesses and people like you or me. For example, our current learning and training style has improved dramatically. Now we can have courses or careers from home. Before, it was unthinkable to access certain content because of the considerable time that would have had to be invested. Today, it is something that companies use to train their employees.
Our leisure activities are strongly affected by the use of the network. One of the sectors that benefits the most is video games . Everything has changed a lot since "Monkey Island" which we played, all alone, in front of our computers, compared to the big current network games such as "League of Legends" or "Call of Duty".
One of the most common types of network communication is client-server , which we use the most in our daily lives. Indeed, this type of communication takes place in such routine tasks as when we double click on the icon of our web browsers, by sending emails, by accessing web pages… In this case, we are the client. that requests information from the server, which could, for example, be the company that offers us the messaging service. To use the network and access this content, we use software that allows us to request any information from the server in question, this is the web browser.
The most basic infrastructure in any network is usually made up of: devices, media, and services. Media and peripherals are hardware elements of the network, such as a router or a PC. As we have already talked about, the services can be any web hosting.
We know of a certain network device called terminal . It is nothing other than the destination and origin of any message transmitted through the network. To distinguish between terminals, a specific address is used. In this way, when communicating between them, this address is indicated and the message reaches the desired destination. To connect these terminals, intermediate devices perform this task, the most common example being the router.
If we think of the physical medium used to achieve this communication, several of them surely come to mind. These can be wires that are in cables, to optical fiber, to the wireless connection of our Wi-Fi network, etc. Each network interface is identified by a globally unique MAC address which differentiates it from others during communication. This address serves as an identity card.
Another concept that we need to explain a little to understand the operation of a network called Gateway and Gateway . Its main function, somewhat summarized, is that it works as a gateway between our local network (us) and the outside, translating the protocols so that communication is possible. A device is assigned an IP address, and from that point on, it will act as a gateway. The most common thing in homes is that it is the router.
Now let's move on to the most used types of networks. We have the LANs for a small area, the WAN for a wide geographic area network and, for example, the WLAN , which is similar to LAN , but wireless. Depending on the number of users, the size of the area to be covered and the number of services, we will use both.
Who provides the connection to the network? Well, it's called ISP , which are Internet service providers. The most common connection options are: cable, ADSL (digital subscription), satellite or dial-up telephony.
A frequent concern of network users is network security. It's not for nothing. In fact, more and more sensitive information that we transmit through this means, from data from our bank accounts to multimedia files, is liable to compromise us.
The most common threats that we can find are viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, adware, zero-day vulnerabilities, identity theft, among others. Many studies have been carried out to analyze what are the best habits to make our network safer on a daily basis, and we have always come to the same conclusion: the worst enemy of our network is our own finger . I mean, the user has a really bad habit of tapping on all kinds of links without even thinking if the latter that we are going to access is safe for us. By being careful, we will avoid 70% of the security problems of our network.
Typical network security components that we are familiar with are: antivirus and antispyware, firewall filtering, file encryption, and other mechanisms. All these elements must be activated on our computers to avoid having a bad time. The vast majority have free versions, so there is no excuse for not having the correct antivirus installed. If we want to subscribe to an antivirus with all the functions, there are quite economical options to present up to 5 devices in a single annual payment.
In addition to the most common, we also have a series of tools to ensure additional security . Some of them can be: access control lists (ACLs), which filter access and forward traffic; virtual private networks (VPNs), which provide more secure access, for example to remote workers; intrusion prevention systems (IPS), which monitor network traffic or system activity for malicious actions, and dedicated firewall systems, which give us more powerful firewall features to filter traffic.
With this article, we intend to give readers a boost to start researching all kinds of interesting information related to networks and their security for themselves. We think it is quite useful to have this kind of knowledge because we are constantly using it and not always giving it everything we should.
Thank you for reading this article on network security. Now that you have deepened your knowledge of networks you can go one step further and start monitoring them, you can also check out the Pandora FMS website to discover a great tool for monitoring networks.
