Similar to how the nervous system forms one of the basic functional building blocks of our human body.
So computer networks are at the very core of the interconnected, seamless world that we all know today.
So hence it's a paramount importance to dedicate our efforts and focus on building and maintaining the
security posture of our networks.
Protecting our networks from an internal and external threats is one of the most important aspects of
any information security program for an organization.
In this chapter, we will be looking at the core concepts that will form our building blocks for our
comprehensively secure network architecture.
Besides a few best practices and guidelines and also for now, there is no technical requirements for
this section of our course for an effective network security apparatus to be in place, it is important
to understand the central concepts associated with it and the implied technologies and processes around
it that make it robust and resilient to cyber attacks.
Today, some of the common challenges that security professionals face is the lack of clear distinction
between the devices in their infrastructure and the data that they hold or process.
This is further complicated when the visibility is blurred by not having a demarcation of the various
network boundaries.
So today we have evolved networks with a component such as Internet of Things, industrial Internet
of things and cloud computing, which have further added to the network's complexity.
Network security in itself touches upon various attributes of security controls that a security professional
should take into account, such as security gateways, SSL inspection, threat prevention engines,
policy enforcement, cloud security solutions, threat detection and insights, attack analysis, w.r.t
frameworks and so on.
Therefore, it is important as a network security professional to not only have a clear visibility of
your network, but also understand the effectiveness of your security products and solutions.
The following subsections will help us get familiar with the key terms and components of network security.