The topic I chose to learn more about for my final blog past was network security. I chose this for a few reasons. One was that this is an area where there are plenty of career options available, so knowing more about it can be very beneficial once I finish my degree and start looking for opportunities. Another is that I have always been curious as how to possibly protect my own and possibly friend’s and family's networks. I know a little bit and I do use anti-virus protection software that has very high review scores. But if there are other secrets I can use to be more secure or possibly free, I will use them.
Network security fits right along with everything we are learning in the fundamentals of information technology class as we were learning about how a packet travels through a network when we used a ping and traceroute. To really understand how some attackers will hijack your computer you have to have an understanding of how network traffic behaves. Knowing how computer hardware, programming and networks have evolved over the years can help you better protect yourself from possible attacks. Marin G.A (2005) says “Typical network traffic consists of millions of packets per second being exchanged among hosts on a LAN and between hosts on the LAN and other hosts on the Internet that can be reached via routers. Network intrusions consist of packets that are introduced specifically to cause problems for any of the following reasons:
to consume resources uselessly
to interfere with any system resource's intended function, or
to gain system knowledge that can be exploited in later attacks.”
Having knowledge of these types of things can help with having some basic common sense while online and can help keep your information and your computer safe.
The good thing about network security is that it relies very little on the level of hardware you are using. Protecting your network is needed if you are using anything from a cheap Chromebook all the way to a high end flashy gaming computer and everything in the spectrum. Now for most of the attacks that require a lot of protection a basic home user won't have to have much more than a good antivirus, malware and maybe ransomware to keep themselves protected. Oh and a lot of common sense. The attacks basic users will have to deal with are things like social engineering and phishing type attacks. Ones where they are going after personal information not really to damage or use your computer in massive malicious attacks.
Canavan J. (2001) stated that “An annual survey conducted jointly by the FBI and the Computer Security Institute (CSI) yielded some interesting numbers. The FBI/CSI survey received 521 responses from individuals in the computer security field. Almost across the board, the numbers were up for various incidents.
Thirty percent of the respondents reported an intrusion from an outside source.
Fifty-five percent of the respondents reported unauthorized intrusion by a source inside the organization.
Of those respondents that reported a loss, the average loss from the theft of proprietary information increased from $1,677,000 in 1998 to $1,847,652 in 1999”
And over the last 20 years this type of information just gets worse. This is why protecting yourself and having some sort of network security is very important. From big businesses to the individual sitting at home shopping on Amazon.
Network security touches a little bit of everything I have read about and learned over these past 5 weeks. But there are some that are much more than others. Understanding how to protect your network programming languages are not super important. You do not need to know how to write a program to install antivirus protection software. But understanding programming languages gives you a better understanding on how some attackers might use a program to gain control of your computer. Database and database management are just items that may need the protection of network security, but you really do not need too much knowledge of what to do and how to protect your network.
Overall I have enjoyed the last 5 weeks getting a little deeper into the basics and the history of some of the items included in information technology. I look forward to the next 2 years getting into the classes related to my major and the information I am going to learn. I plan to dig more into network security on my own and learn what I can.
References
Canavan, J. (2001). Fundamentals of Network Security. Google Books. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bSPsPmtSMboC&oi=fnd&pg=PR17&dq=network+security&ots=H9PM0Vpyaq&sig=MhNwKvyrnTrJD_Qd3ObVuIU1P1k#v=onepage&q=network%20security&f=false.
Marin, G. (2005). Network security basics - IEEE Journals & Magazine. Ieeexplore.ieee.org. Retrieved 15 December 2020, from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1556540/citations#citations.
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