Cyber Security Devices and Solutions

Cybersecurity devices can help protect networks and devices from cyberthreats. Below is a list of some of the commonly used devices and solutions

1. Firewalls:

A primary security tool for protecting networks from the internet, firewalls can be standalone systems or integrated into other devices.

Firewalls are one of the most fundamental network security appliances. Like many other security devices, firewalls can come in hardware or software forms. Most of the time, businesses choose to use dedicated, specialized hardware since it can handle more traffic and has better vendor support.

Firewalls provide separation between your internal network and the wider Internet. They can block connections on specific ports, from specific IP addresses, and from machines or networks matching other criteria. Most firewalls are configured to deny incoming traffic by default, providing a baseline of security for your network.

Packet-filtering firewall : The first and simplest type of firewall is one that filters packets. At the network layer, they merely compare the source and destination IP addresses, protocol, and source/destination port of a data packet against set rules to determine whether or not to allow or refuse it. Packet filtering firewalls are inherently stateless, which means they monitor each packet independently without keeping track of the established connection or packets that have gone through it previously. As a result, the capacity of these firewalls to defend against sophisticated threats and assaults is significantly compromised.

Proxy firewall: Proxy firewalls, also known as application-level gateways, are constructed via an application-layer proxy server. Instead of directly connecting to the internal network, the connection is established through the proxy firewall. The proxy firewall will initially receive a request from an external client. The proxy firewall then checks the request’s legitimacy before sending it on behalf of the client to one of the internal devices. An internal client may also request website access, with the proxy device sending the request while concealing the client’s name and location. Consequently, one of the primary benefits of proxy firewalls is the provision of privacy.

Stateful packet-filtering firewall: Stateful inspection firewalls inspect packets in addition to validating and recording existing connections to provide more robust and comprehensive protection. After establishing a connection, they generate a state table including the source/destination IP addresses and source/destination ports. Rather than relying on a hard-coded set of rules based on this information, they generate their own rules dynamically to enable the prediction of incoming network traffic. Not-belonging-to-a-verified-active-connection data packets are conveniently refused. Stateful firewalls feature significant logging capabilities that may be employed for monitoring and troubleshooting.

Web application firewall (WAF): A web application firewall or WAF aids in the protection of web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet. It generally protects online applications from several threats, including cross-site forgery, cross-site scripting (XSS), file inclusion, and SQL injection. A WAF is protection at protocol layer 7 (in the OSI model) and is not meant to guard against all forms of assaults. Typically, this technique of attack mitigation is part of a suite of technologies that, when combined, provide comprehensive protection against a variety of attack vectors.

By placing a WAF in front of a web application, the application is protected from the Internet. A proxy server protects the identity of a client machine by acting as an intermediary, whereas a WAF is a form of reverse proxy that shields the server from exposure by requiring clients to pass through it before contacting the server.

Like a regular network firewall, a WAF selectively allows or blocks traffic based on predefined criteria or suspicious activity. Web applications commonly have security vulnerabilities that can be used to compromise a company’s network and leak data. While finding and fixing all of these issues would be the ideal solution, using a web application firewall is a good next layer of defence.

A WAF can block URLs and requests containing suspicious payloads, evidence of SQL injection attempts, and other attacks. They can come in the form of a physical device, a software extension to another network security device, or software installed on a standard reverse proxy server.

2. Intrusion detection systems (IDP / IPS)

 These systems can detect malicious network packets and prevent them from harming a network.

Network-based intrusion protection systems proactively monitor all of the traffic going through your network. Using pre-made profiles, signature detection, artificial intelligence, and anomaly detection, IPS systems can detect many kinds of network intrusions, from malware on endpoint devices to denial of service attacks.

One of the most useful features of network-based intrusion protection is that it can talk to firewalls and other network hardware in real time as threats are discovered. As an example, an IPS system could detect a device with malware installed from the unusual and suspicious network traffic it produces. Afterwards, the IPS can request that the firewall quarantines this infected device on its own partitioned subnet so that it is unable to cause further damage.

3. Unified Threat Management (UTM)

 UTMs combine a network firewall, an intrusion detection system, an intrusion prevention system, and other features. For smaller businesses or those without significant IT resources, using a UTM can save lots of time and money. However, UTMs are not always better than discrete equipment: they create a single point of failure that can take down the whole network if something goes wrong.

4. Email security

These solutions can filter email content, attachments, and URLs to block malicious content. 

While more and more businesses move to cloud-hosted email solutions, network email gateways can still be useful. These devices monitor incoming and outgoing email traffic for spam, viruses, phishing attempts, and compromised accounts. Recent, advanced email security gateways also use historical data and statistical analysis to detect anomalies with more accuracy

5. Wireless Intrusion Prevention and Detection System (WIDPS)

 These systems monitor the radio spectrum around a wireless network for rogue access points.  As specialized security equipment or integrated software program, the wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS) is responsible for keeping an eye on the radio spectrum in the vicinity of the wireless network for any rogue access points or other dangers.

An administrator is alerted when a difference is identified between the MAC addresses of all wireless access points on a network and the known signatures of pre-authorized, known wireless access points. WIPS capable of analyzing the unique radio frequency signatures generated by wireless devices can avoid MAC address spoofing by blocking unfamiliar radio fingerprints.

6. Network access control devices

 These devices link network authentication with the state of endpoint devices to keep infected or insecure devices off of a corporate network. 

For example, an integrated network access control solution could make sure that devices could not authenticate themselves without having the latest security updates installed

7. Antivirus software

This software can find and remove viruses and other harmful malware.  Malware and other potentially harmful applications may be detected and removed using an antivirus tool. It was formerly possible to employ antivirus software to protect against only viruses. As a result, they now protect from malware, ransomware, and spyware, among other threats. In some cases, email phishing attempts can also be prevented by antivirus software. Network security devices and tools should be able to detect threats from any source, including dangerous programs and viruses via email.

8. VPN gateways

These gateways can provide remote access to a company network for clients such as telecommuters.

9. Data loss prevention (DLP) tools

These tools monitor data to detect and prevent data breaches.

Most organizations use cybersecurity frameworks to defend against attacks. These frameworks define best practices, including security auditing, security policy development, and methods for monitoring security conditions.

10. Network Device Backup and Recovery

With so many individual network devices, applying and rolling back configuration changes can be challenging. Additionally, large numbers of separate devices are difficult to recover quickly in the event of a disaster.

For these reasons, centralised backup and recovery for network devices is very useful. Network configuration management tools automate the backup process by securely storing the configuration and state of network devices, simplifying rollback or restore operations.

11. Network Load Balancer (NLB)

A Network Load Balancer operates at the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model’s fourth layer. It is capable of processing millions of queries per second. After receiving a connection request, the load balancer picks a target from the target group for the default rule. It tries to establish a TCP connection with the given destination on the port specified in the listener settings.

NLB is created particularly for high-performance online traffic that is not typical. NLB can handle millions of queries per second while retaining extremely low latency.