How-to & Tuorials

Network Security Demystified: Understanding Networks

A firm grounding of what computer networks are and how they function is critical for our understanding of networks and network security. No discussion on networks is complete without talking about the very basics of networking, for which this first article is dedicated to.

Networking is important because of the fact that communication is important just like there needs to be some sort of a protocol when two humans speak — the least of which demands that both of them understand the same language that is being used to communicate in — two or more computers connected for information sharing need to have an established protocol so that they can communicate effectively.

Of course, you don’t really need to have a network for exchanging information. For instance, you could think of copying all the information on your portable drive or CD and walk across to where you friend has been waiting and dump all of those files on to your friend’s computer.

But can you imagine the chaos that would result from people walking over; CDs and Pen-drives being shipped to and fro? That’s where networking becomes incredibly effective when it comes to information sharing and exchange of files.

So now, assuming you have computers at your office and you need to be connected, all you need to have is a Network Interface Card (a piece of hardware that enables network connectivity) on each of the computers at your office. Then, each of these computers can then be plugged together using cables. Voila, you have your network ready and kicking to work. As an aside, networks can be made wireless too, in case you don’t want to have anything to do with cables and wires. You could use a simpler alternative by allowing a software like Network Magic Essentials, from Purenetworks, to hand-hold you and help you set up your network.

Each computer on this network is said to be well, on network or online. Each computer is called as a node. Networks in offices are referred to as LAN (Local Area Networks) and that is not to be misconstrued as the Internet (The Internet the mother of all networks and we will discuss how that falls into place later).

One of the most important reasons why networks are enabled at work places is for sharing the common resources like printers, Photo Scanners and the servers. As much as an advantage it certainly is, this series of articles (starting with this one) is focused on discussing the security threats that emanate from the very usage of a network.

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