Network security is part of the enterprise risk management within the overall business policy. Every company has to determine the acceptable levels of risk and vulnerabilities that are actually based on the value of the corporate assets. Enterprises should also define the risk probability and the reasonable expectation of quantifiable loss in case of a security compromise.
The main purpose of a Denial of Service (DoS) attack is to make a machine or a network resource unavailable to its intended users. In this particular type of attack, the attacker does not try to gain access to a resource; rather, the attacker tries to induce a loss of access to different users or services. These resources can include:
- The entire enterprise network
- The CPU of a network device or server
- The memory of a network device or server
- The disk of a network device or server
A spoofing (or masquerading) attack is the process in which a single host or entity falsely assumes (spoof) the identity of another host. A common spoofing attack is called the man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack and it works by convincing two different hosts (the sender and the receiver) that the computer in the middle is actually the other host.
A virus is a generic term for any type of program that attaches to individual files on a target system. Once the virus appends its original code to a victim’s file, the victim is infected and the file is changed and it can infect other files through a process called replication.
Social engineering attacks are difficult to identify because they are not electronically detectable. They function via direct human interaction in which an attacker (assuming a different identity) convinces an employee to disclose confidential information.
War driving is the process of finding available wireless access points within a certain geographical area by driving around and listening for signals.
Even though wireless networks are very popular, one of the biggest challenges is protecting the data that flows through the air and that is often publically accessible. Possible attackers might capture data that flows through a wireless network so they can analyze it and try to decrypt the information. WPA should be used instead of WEP as the encryption algorithm wherever possible.
Rogue access points can be a major concern, especially in large environments, and they represent third-party access points usually installed by users in a network. This creates vulnerability as everyone in range of the rogue access points can have access to the network.