Network Security

Long time no see! This is Bndsbon. Today I am going to talk about security in computer networks. This has always been an essential issue for computer users. Today this issue, of network security, still remains debatable.

Before I talk about sercurity, let’s have a look at what will usually happen in a computer network if there is no proper protection:

Disable operations

Gain unauthorized access to certain portals or servers

Viruses and service attacks might be happening

user’s privacy might be leaked

Launch denial of service attacks

Yes, without proper protection within a computer network, many horrible things might be happening, and our online surfing experience will be very horrible. Hackers can easily hack into everywhere. However our smart and intelligent computer builders realized theses potential risks long before the establishment of the computer network, and they developed a technique called Encryption.

Encryption, literaly speaking, means to use a certain method to protect the data from unauthorized access. Actually this technique was never new to humans. As early as in the Roman time, the Romans developed a shift called Casear Shift (also known as Casear Cipher), which makes a message or word into a form that is not understandable to another person. However, the Casear shift was too easy to be hacked, so the computer builders developed many new and complex mathmatical operations to enhance the protection of informations.

Basically, there are two computer encryption categories, one is Symmetric-key Encryption, the other is Public-key Encryption or Asymmetric Key Encryption. The first one have only but one key, it is used both in encryption and decryption. While the second one have two keys, one is the public key, which uses only for encryption, and the other one is the private key, which uses only for decryption.
Still feeling a bit confused? Click this URL to get additional information: youtu.be/ZghMPWGXexs .

Picture from AvaLAN 

Nowadays, we have a lot of authentication methods. They are basically divided into three parts, one of them is one factor authentication method. Which uses something you know, like the password. the other is two factor authenication method. Which uses something you have, like the QR Code of your WeChat. The last one is three factor authentication method. Which uses something you are, like your finger print.

So far, you might temped to ask the question; how can we improve our security in computers? Well, my suggestion is to use a stronger password, download a antivirus device on you mobile device, disable SSID Broadcast, or use router hardware firewall…etc. There are actually a lot of ways to enhance your computer network security. Just look online to get some ideas.

Wireless Network Encryption Techniques is also something we learned in today’s class.

Generally, it uses the following techniques, WEP, WPA, WPA2, adn WPA2 Enterprise.

My group, Barry, Lin, and me did a presentation on WPA. And here is our poster.

Poster constructed by Barry, Lin and Bndsbon

References:

Hamby, Courtney. “Advantages of network security.” AvaLAN. 9 Aug. 2016. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.

“Lincoln Archives: Network security protection – buffalo NY.” Lincoln Archives. Google+, 1997. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.