NETWORK SECURITY MONITORING

THE DEFENSE SYSTEM AGAINST EVER-INCREASING CYBER-CRIME 

            “We discovered in our research that insider threats are not viewed as seriously as external threats, like a cyber-attack. But when companies had an insider threat, in general, they were much more costly than external incident. This was largely because the insider that is smart has the skills to hide the crime, for months, for years, sometimes forever.”         

_Dr. Larry Ponemon          

A fine line must be drawn between the rate at which cyber-crime is increasing and the defense system that should be ready at the gates to fight against cyber-criminals. Since the pandemic begin, these attacks have increased way more than before in 2021. All the online transactions, schooling from home and offices whose work are based on internet; there is a high risk factor that goes along with such practices, the fact that we can lose our data or confidential information to cyber-criminals. To draw that fine line against cyber-crime, we require the services that a network security monitoring system can provide.  

WHAT IS NETWORK SECURITY MONITORING AND HOW DOES IT WORK? 

When cyber-criminals attack, it becomes very hard for an organization to fight against it and specifically recovering from it. These criminals find their way through computer network and install a malware to function in favor of them. It tends to destroy whatever it finds, leaving the organization with such a serious injury to deal with.  Network security is a way to hamper crime rate and to detect breaches before even an attack could occur.  It uses tactics, tools and security strategies which are designed to work against unauthorized network intrusion.  Network security monitoring focuses on three key areas; 

1. PROTECTION: At the very initial level, network security works towards protecting the systems from any intrusion that could be the suspect of a damaging actor, Malware. 

2. DETECTION: Within detection, network security analyses the traffic source and identifies problems before they can make serious harm to the systems. 

3. RESPONSE: As soon as network security identifies a malicious threat, it reacts immediately to resolve the problem within seconds. This response system is built under the network security monitoring system. 

It functions to protect an organizational data, digital assets and is capable of responding to all kinds of potential threats targeting your network.  It is very essential to protect the organization from inside out, when the firm’s reputation is at stake. Once the reputation of an organization gets damaged, it loses its customers because they are likely to withdraw their information and assets to protect from cyber-criminals. It is very difficult to rise to the same level that an organization used to be at. Therefore, network security monitoring is the best option and a great back up plan to have against cyber-attack criminals. 

THERE ARE CERTAIN TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES BY THE HELP OF WHICH THE NETWORK SECURITY SYSTEM IS ABLE TO KEEP THE DANGER AT BAY ARE AS FOLLOWS; 

1. ACCESS CONTROL: By limiting the access to only few number of users, ultimately reduces the possible breaches that could have occurred if the access is granted to all.  

2. ANTI-MALWARE SOFTWARE: this feature identifies the malware upon entry and functions to eliminate it as quickly as possible. It also reduces the level of damage done by the malicious actor and keeps the network secure. 

3. ANOMALY DETECTION: It allows the user to analyze their network, so that when breaches occur, they will be the first one to know through an alarm system, so that they can be able to respond fast to any malicious activity. 

4. APPLICATION SECURITY: cyber-criminals use mobile and various applications as a vulnerability to enter into the networking system. This security system detects and alerts the user about the application they are installing. 

5. DATA LOSS PREVENTION (DLP): Often the employee or the user becomes the reason for the data to be hacked or to be leaked. DLP secures the data from letting it out of the network system. 

6. EMAIL SECURITY: Just like DLP, Email security functions to protect the network against Human-related security vulnerabilities, which often focuses on preventing network from cyber-criminals phishing strategies. It identifies dangerous emails from unauthorized address and alerts the user thereafter.