In our previous blog, we talked about the basics of network security and discussed the defenses that can be used to protect your network infrastructure.
In this blog post, we will share network security best practices that will help your organization establish a functional and effective security posture to deal with common security threats that businesses face.
Network Security Best Practices
Here are the common network security best practices that mitigate risks and help in maintaining a secure and healthy network:
1. Physically Secure The Network Infrastructure
Physical security is probably the last thing that comes to mind when you think of network security. All the firewalls and intrusion detection systems will amount to nothing if someone can simply walk into your server room and plug in a USB thumb drive. Therefore, physical security controls play an important role in mitigating many security risks such as theft, vandalism, or physical attacks.
Unauthorized access to physical infrastructure allows criminals the opportunity to steal or damage critical IT assets such as servers and storage devices, gain access to admin terminals for mission-critical applications, and steal data or upload malware onto your network via USB. Therefore, you need to put security controls in place to prevent physical attacks such as breaking into data centers, sneaking into restricted areas of the office, and unauthorized access to critical devices.
Here are a few physical security controls that you can implement to get started:
Implement physical access control measures such as door locks, biometric access controls, and video monitoring, for server rooms, network closets, etc.
Control access to your office premises via reception desk, access badges, sign-in log, etc.
Escort visitors in and out of controlled areas within the premises.
Restrict physical access to network infrastructure devices such as servers, routers, firewalls, etc.
Secure computers and other systems physically with locks and security cables.
2. Segment The Network
Any device that connects to your network virtually has access to the entire network infrastructure. Imagine if a hacker manages to gain access to one device on your network, they can potentially spread malware or gain further access to your entire network. Ideally, you want to prevent any and all intrusion into your network. However, there’s no security system that can provide 100% protection. So you need to plan for the worst-case scenario.
So in case of a network intrusion, you need to have systems in place that can contain the threat and prevent it from spreading to other network devices. This is where you can utilize network segmentation. By segregating your network into logical or functional units, you can easily limit the damage in case of a successful network breach.
For example, you can have a separate service set identifier (SSID) and virtual LAN (VLAN) for each of the different business functions or units such as sales, tech support, operations, etc. You can separate the networks by using routers or switches or by configuring a group of ports on a network switch to behave as a separate network. Your network devices will run on the same network hardware but on a separate VLAN.
Network segmentation essentially divides your network into different segments, limiting potential damage and making it difficult for attackers to gain access to your entire network. You can also use advanced network segmentation techniques such as air-gaps, for example, air-gapped backup servers, and virtualization. However, such techniques must be used with caution as they can reduce the effectiveness of many systems and are not the right solution for every situation.
3. Centralize Log Management
A log is a record of events that occur in an operating system or software. These records are stored in a file called a log file. Every application running in a server environment generates log files automatically. The log files are an essential part of security as they provide information about how the system is running, past operations, changes made, etc. Analysis of log files is an important process used by cybersecurity professionals to pinpoint errors, establish benchmarks and trends, and detect anomalies.
However, looking through log files is an extremely time-consuming and exhausting process. You will need to manually look up errors on hundreds, or even thousands of log files depending on how many servers you have. That’s why you need centralized log management (CLM) solution. A CLM is a tool that consolidates all log data into a central interface making the log data more accessible and easy to use.
Centralized logging solutions not only consolidate the log data but also offer other functionalities such as:
Retain log files for specified periods of time
Easily search for files as well as inside log files
Generate alerts based on metrics and benchmarks
Create visual dashboards and data analysis reports
Centralized log management is a best practice that will help you strengthen your security. Log File analysis helps you improve threat detection so that you are better prepared for such attacks in the future. It helps you reconstruct events that occur during attacks, enabling you to locate vulnerabilities in your infrastructure and take remedial measures.
4. Use A Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is essential for keeping your company resources such as a corporate intranet, applications, databases, etc. secure while remote users access those resources from outside your corporate network. VPN protects your organization’s internal network and resources from unauthorized access and snooping. It does so by using advanced security measures such as encryption and authentication protocols.
VPN is a network security necessity for any organization that allows remote work and especially for those that rely on employee mobility and services such as on-site sales and support. VPN ensures that your employees can safely access company resources over public networks without jeopardizing the integrity of your network.
5. Use Security Automation
Any change to your business process or IT infrastructure can impact the state of your network security. The addition of new elements such as IoT devices or the adoption of new applications can open new attack surfaces. In addition, errors such as misconfiguration, omissions, or delays are common in any work environment. Errors are pervasive and it is unlikely that any organization is ever completely free of such errors.
However, using security automation, these lapses and errors can be either prevented or detected early. Network security automation executes security tasks programmatically. Low-complexity, high-volume tasks that are common in threat detection and investigation can be automated so that the limited time of your engineers is not spent on such mundane tasks.
Typically, network security automation is used to manage parts of detection, investigation, and mitigation. For example, automation can be used to weed out false alerts from real threats among the thousands of security alerts every organization receives on an average day. In addition to relieving the burden of tedious tasks, automation can also replace manual configuration and administration tasks that are commonly a source of errors.
Network security automation is also useful for ensuring regulatory compliance by performing continuous network analysis, recertifying errors, and policy violations, and generating standardized reports.
Conclusion
IT security, including network security, largely consists of preventive exercises. The focus is always on stopping threats from breaching your network because, usually, before you discover the security breach, the damage will most likely already have been done. The loss of operations or revenue may not even be the biggest concern in case of a network breach. Loss of data, loss of reputation, and regulatory penalties may be an even bigger concern for your organization. Therefore it is important to prepare in advance and the easiest way to do it is by adopting industry best practices.
The network security best practices that we have covered in this blog offer efficient ways for your organization to proactively identify and remediate security vulnerabilities, mitigate security risks, and improve threat detection and prevention across your network infrastructure. This is by no means an exhaustive list of best practices and we will share more in our future blog posts. In the meantime, you can use the recommendations above to harden your network security and meet your security goals and compliance requirements.
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About The Author
Hari SubediMarketing Manager at Jones IT
Hari is an online marketing professional with a focus on content marketing. He writes on topics related to IT, Security, Small Business, and Mindfulness. He is also the founder and managing director of Girivar Kft., a business services company located in Budapest, Hungary.