What is Cybersecurity

The connected network has become an integral part of our daily lives. All types of organizations, such as medical, financial, and education institutions, use this network to operate effectively. They utilize the network by collecting, processing, storing, and sharing vast amounts of digital information. As more digital information is gathered and shared, the protection of this information is becoming even more vital to our national security and economic stability. Cybersecurity is the ongoing effort to protect these networked systems and all of the data from unauthorized use or harm. On a personal level, you need to safeguard your identity, your data, and your computing devices. At the corporate level, it is everyone’s responsibility to protect the organization’s reputation, data, and customers. At the state level, national security, and the safety and well being of the citizens are at stake. [Cisco, 2020] - [Photo Internet]

What is Cybersecurity Engineering

Security engineering is about building systems to remain dependable in the face of malice, error, or mischance. As a discipline, it focuses on the tools, processes, and methods needed to design, implement, and test complete systems, and to adapt existing systems as their environment evolves. Security engineering requires cross-disciplinary expertise, ranging from cryptography and computer security through hardware tamper-resistance and formal methods to a knowledge of applied psychology, organizational and audit methods and the law. System engineering skills, from business process analysis through software engineering to evaluation and testing, are also important; but they are not sufficient, as they deal only with error and mischance rather than malice. Many security systems have critical assurance requirements. Their failure may endanger human life and the environment (as with nuclear safety and control systems), do serious damage to major economic infrastructure (cash machines and other bank systems), endanger personal privacy (medical record systems), undermine the viability of whole business sectors (pay-TV), and facilitate crime (burglar and car alarms). Even the perception that a system is more vulnerable than it really is (as with paying with a credit card over the Internet) can significantly hold up economic development. The conventional view is that while software engineering is about ensuring that certain things happen (“John can read this file”), security is about ensuring that they don’t (“The Chinese government can’t read this file”). Reality is much more complex. Security requirements differ greatly from one system to another. One typically needs some combination of user authentication, transaction integrity and accountability, fault tolerance, message secrecy, and covertness. But many systems fail because their designers protect the wrong things, or protect the right things but in the wrong way. [Ross Anderson Cambridge, January 2001] - [Photo Internet]

What is Social Engineering

Social engineering is an access attack that attempts to manipulate individuals into performing actions or divulging confidential information. Social engineers often rely on people’s willingness to be helpful but also prey on people’s weaknesses. For example, an attacker could call an authorized employee with an urgent problem that requires immediate network access. The attacker could appeal to the employee’s vanity, invoke authority using name dropping techniques, or appeal to the employee’s greed. [Cisco, 2020] - [Photo by new.psu.edu]

What is Security Vulnerabilities

Security vulnerabilities are any kind of software or hardware defect. After gaining knowledge of a vulnerability, malicious users attempt to exploit it. An exploit is the term used to describe a program written to take advantage of a known vulnerability. The act of using an exploit against a vulnerability is referred to as an attack. The goal of the attack is to gain access to a system, the data it hosts or to a specific resource. [Cisco, 2020] - [Photo Internet]

What is OWASP Top Ten

OWASP Top 10 is one of the organization's best-known projects. OWASP Top 10 is a ranking of the ten most dangerous information security risks for web applications, compiled by a community of industry experts. For each point of the rating, the risk is calculated by experts based on the OWASP Risk Rating Methodology and includes an assessment of Weakness Prevalence, Weakness Detectability and Exploitability, as well as the criticality of the consequences of their operation or Technical Impacts. [Photo by owasp]

Networking Fundamentals

A network connects two or more computers to communicate with each other or for the exchange of information among the systems. Networking is sharing of the resources within a network. In basic communication, there are three components involved: the sender, the receiver, and the media. In the case of two people communicating with each other face to face, within a short distance, the media could be just air. Communication is completed only when the sender and receiver understand each other and are able to comprehend the information. In order to comprehend the information that is being exchanged between the sender and the receiver, the communication "protocol" could be common "language". Protocol is a set of rules defined by the communication channel in order to comprehend the information that is being exchanged and in normal human communication, it is a common language understood by both the parties. Let’s say that the sender understands a different language and the receiver understands a different language. For discussion’s sake, let’s say the sender understands French and the receiver understands Greek. Assume that both have to exchange information, the media is Facsimile (FAX) in France and Telegraph in Greece. This communication has increased the complexity as both sender and receiver do not have a common language and there is no common media. The communication needs translators who understand both the languages or two translators – one who understands the sender’s language (e.g., French) and another common language (e.g., English), another who understands a common language (e.g., English) and the receiver’s language (e.g., Greek). These translators translate to the senders and receivers. A media translator transfers facsimile information on to the telegraphic information and vice versa.
[Apress open, The infosec Handbook] - [Photo Internet]

Network Vulnerabilities and Threats

With the advancement in computing, networking, and technology, the world is becoming more and more connected. Internet connects millions of computers and most of the geographies of this world. The Internet is a network of networks and consists of billions of users across private, public, university, and government networks sharing information across the networks. The Internet uses TCP/IP protocol and the underlying physical media can be wire, optical, or wireless technologies. The Internet serves an extensive range of applications, starting with e-mail, the World Wide Web (www), and social networks. Each application may use one or more protocols. There is a large amount of personal, commercial, business, government, and military information being shared on the Internet. There are billions of users, both good and bad, accessing the Internet. The bad guys, known as hackers and such other persons with malicious intent are a concern. With so many computers, networking devices, protocols, and applications on the network, it has become a serious threat to information security. Any application, network device, or protocol can be vulnerable. The internet is crawling with people from all over the world who are continuously trying to test the security of various systems and networks. Some are simply testing for fun and others are fuelled by treacherous motives of stealing or revenge.
A threat is an event that can occur by taking advantage of any vulnerabilities that exist in the network. Any discussion on network security will include these three common terms:
• Vulnerability: An inherent weakness in the network, and network device. It could be hardware or software or both. Possible vulnerabilities could include routers, switches, servers, and security devices themselves.
• Threat: A threat is what can go wrong because of the exploit of the vulnerabilities or attack on the assets, such as data theft or unauthorized modification of the data.
• Attack: An attack is an unauthorized action with the intent to cause damage, or hinder or breach security of a network. An attack is launched by intruders to damage the network and network resources such as end-point devices, servers, or desktops which are vulnerable. [Photo by alpinesecurity]

TCP/IP Model

The TCP/IP protocol model for internetwork communications was created in the early 1970s and is sometimes referred to as the Internet model. As shown in the figure, it defines four categories of functions that must occur for communications to be successful. The architecture of the TCP/IP protocol suite follows the structure of this model. Because of this, the Internet model is commonly referred to as the TCP/IP model. Most protocol models describe a vendor-specific protocol stack. Legacy protocol suites, such as Novell Netware and AppleTalk, are examples of vendor-specific protocol stacks. Because the TCP/IP model is an open standard, one company does not control the definition of the model. The definitions of the standard and the TCP/IP protocols are discussed in a public forum and defined in a publicly available set of RFCs. [Cisco]- [Photo Internet]

OSI Model

The OSI model provides an extensive list of functions and services that can occur at each layer. It also describes the interaction of each layer with the layers directly above and below. The TCP/IP protocols discussed in this course are structured around both the OSI and TCP/IP models. The functionality of each layer and the relationship between layers will become more evident throughout this course as the protocols are discussed in more detail.
[Cisco] - [Photo Internet]

Virtual networking

Virtual networking enables communication between multiple computers, virtual machines (VMs), virtual servers, or other devices across different office and data center locations. While physical networking connects computers through cabling and other hardware, virtual networking extends these capabilities by using software management to connect computers and servers over the Internet. It uses virtualized versions of traditional network tools, like switches and network adapters, allowing for more efficient routing and easier network configuration changes. Virtual networking enables devices across many locations to function with the same capabilities as a traditional physical network. This allows for data centers to stretch across different physical locations, and gives network administrators new and more efficient options, like the ability to easily modify the network as needs change, without having to switch out or buy more hardware; greater flexibility in provisioning the network to specific needs and applications; and the capacity to move workloads across the network infrastructure without compromising service, security, and availability. [vmware]

Network automation

Network automation is the process of automating the configuring, managing, testing, deploying, and operating of physical and virtual devices within a network. With everyday network tasks and functions automated and repetitive processes controlled and managed automatically, network service availability improves. Any type of network can use network automation. Hardware- and software-based solutions enable data centers, service providers, and enterprises to implement network automation to improve efficiency, reduce human error, and lower operating expenses. [Cisco]