Security of enterprise networks has taken new dimensions over the last few years. The new business paradigm puts pressure on businesses to get their employees to access e-mail and the Internet. Business houses, today, are also required to enter into electronic relationships with suppliers, vendors and other partners in the form of VPNs and extranets. They also have to struggle to open their networks for the outside world where computer viruses threaten to infiltrate. And, also compete with the professional hackers and ‘script kiddies’ to lay their hands on enterprise networks. At risk are expensive systems and theft of sensitive data.

About twenty-five years ago, managers of computing facilities were only concerned of guarding their machines against the unauthorized users. As the client-server model came into vogue, systems managers discovered that they had to live with a few security holes in popular operating systems, which could provide unauthorized access. While working on resources shared by other computers was exciting, it also meant that TCP/IP introduced security concerns. Measures like encryption, firewall and anti-virus solutions, coupled with good old password protection were introduced. However, as such shared services were limited, the potential for attacks was also low. In the present phase, the challenges to network security have dramatically increased with the proliferation of the Internet.

E-business may face threats of web site defacement, DoS, mail bombing, spoofing, packet sniffing, etc. Viruses, worms and Trojan horses have the potential to reformat hard disks, delete files or spawn new processes that cause the entire network to crash.

Security against hacking and viruses should, ideally, be implemented at the gateway level. It is essential that ISPs incorporate virus protection mechanisms so that users’ networks are not exposed. Enterprises, in turn, should ensure that users’ machines are not open to the threats from the Internet and the mails through an anti-virus wall. The latest gizmos, which provide enterprises a sense of security, are magnetic card keys, optical retina scanners and fingerprint readers. But a random deployment of security solutions won’t do the trick. Network security must be a proactive rather than a reactive. This implies involvement of the top management along with the representatives of user departments, besides the network managers.

The time has come for enterprises to conduct a careful assessment of threat and deploy an optimal solution. Vulnerability analysis and risk assessment should throw open areas that are critical. This should be followed by careful selection of vendors to provide a solution but not before designing a security policy, drafting procedures and standards. User requirements must be kept in mind and system availability must be evaluated in conjunction with the need for security. Complete security is ephemeral, thus it is better to pursue good security now than better- than-perfect security later. Of course, the time honoured principle of separating the roles so that people responsible for implementing and running security systems should be separated from users. To conclude, network security in the Internet era is as essential as your most important business processes and requires a holistic approach in understanding the risks and minimizing them.

Frank Leu, managing director, South Asia & South East Asia, Trend Micro