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Assessing network security effectiveness.

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Network security Assessment addresses the broader aspects of the security functionality of a network.

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This should involve exploring the network infrastructure to identify the different components present

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in the environment and cataloging them.

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Ideally, this should be followed by assessing the technical architecture, technological configurations

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and vulnerabilities and threats that might have been identified as a part of the first step.

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Following this, we should focus on the ability to exploit these identified threats to validate their

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impact and risk factor, which may be based on a qualitative or quantitative approach.

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This helps us in deriving accurate prioritization and business context as well as the corresponding

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remediation plan.

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Some key concepts that we will be covering in this course as a part of the network security will form

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the fundamental and foundational capabilities that enable us to check the right boxes and derive an

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appropriate value for each.

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In this section, we will investigate the major domains that can help us assess the maturity of the

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network.

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Static Analysis.

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This focuses on auditing, application code, network and server configuration and providing an architectural

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review of the network.

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This is exhaustive and as work and time intensive, but derives a lot of valuable insights into the

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inner workings of the various components and configuration errors and vulnerabilities that might persist

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in the environment as they are conducted at runtime.

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Therefore, we need to break this into small, actionable steps such as design, review, configuration

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review and static code analysis.

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Dynamic Analysis.

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Dynamic analysis focuses on the threat actors perspective Who aims to exploit the services and threat

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vectors that can result in the loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability.

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And this can be inclusive of network infrastructure testing the application and services testing and

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dynamic code analysis.

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Also remember that static analysis is more focused on preventive checking, whereas the dynamic analysis

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focuses on resolving existing vulnerabilities and flaws.

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Static analysis is cost efficient and takes less time compared to dynamic analysis.

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This is because static analysis is generally done before deployment and is less expensive due to the

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efforts that's involved.

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Configuration Review.

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Configuration Review.

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This focuses on the auditing network components at a low level, such as firewalls, routers, switches,

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storage and virtualization, infrastructure server and appliance operating system configuration and

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application configurations.

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You can leverage configuration reviews to perform gap analysis and document possible flaws in the configuration

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and harden mitigate the identified ones.

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You can also prioritize the recommended actions based on their severity and impact.

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The low hanging ones should be addressed quickly.

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Design review.

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This concentrates on implementing security controls and evaluating their effectiveness and applicability.

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For example, ISO IEC 1540812208 is an industry recognized certification that accounts for general concepts

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and principles of IT security evaluation.

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It captures a variety of operations.

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The functional and assurance components are given in ISO is 154082 and ISO is 154083 and can be tailored

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for the relevant operations network infrastructure testing.

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This segregates network testing in the form of vulnerability assessment and penetration testing.

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There is a wide range of tools and platforms that can be utilized for the same that will scan the network

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and infrastructure for potential vulnerabilities and provide a base for manual or automated testing

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of the exploited vulnerabilities or flaws.

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Web Application Testing.

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Web application testing involves assessing an application from various approaches to test for weaknesses

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in the source code, application and business logic.

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Authenticated and unauthenticated application processing and configuring and implementing laws of ASP

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is a brilliant resource for digging deeper into application security practice.

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So far we have explored the various major aspects that should form the basic building blocks of a good

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network security architecture.

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Next, we will take a look at some technical management aspects.