Network Security Certification

Network security certification is a coveted commodity by employers and IT professionals alike. Most network administrators can tell you a story about an issue pertaining to network security that gave them a scare at the time, taught them a lesson, and makes for a good story now. But protecting sensitive business information is not laughing matter. Considering the stakes, its taken very seriously in the corporate world. Allowing corporate secrets to fall into the wrong hands could be very bad for business and that's why corporate employers place such value on network security certification and pay high salaries to people who can secure corporate networks.

Contrary to popular belief, most damage to corporate networks happens from the inside rather than from outside. Protecting the network from harm, inside or out, is a major part of any network administrator's job and it's generally not the easiest part of the job.

The primary networking devices used to provide security, beyond that of the router, are firewalls and proxy servers. Don't be too alarmed but the world is full of intruders intent on infiltrating your network. Some of these people do it for fun but other are evil hackers out to steal your information. These are the people network security is most concerned with keeping out.

You'll need to have a general understanding of what firewalls, proxy servers, and cache servers can and cannot do. These devices play an important role in network security but they can only do what you tell them to do. They are not smart enough to tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy. They don't have any special analyzing capabilities and artificial intelligence hasn't reached these devices yet. Everything a firewall, proxy, or cache server is done by definition, configuration, and plan.

You may have heard network security people speak of Data Encryption Standard (DES) which is an IBM encryption algorithm what was further improved by the US National Security Agency (NSA) for encrypting transmitted data. In technical terms, it breaks data into 64-bit blocks and then encrypts them by using the Boolean exclusive or with a 56-bit key.

DES encryption is widely used because its fast. Its kept secret and can be used many times. Some applications also generate a key randomly for each session. Triple DES extends the key to 168 bits but because it requires multiple passes to decrypt the data it's not as fast. A new method called Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) may soon replace AES as it provides as much or more security as Triple DES but can be decrypted in one pass so it's faster.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to network security so you can see it's quite a complicated subject that requires in-depth knowledge and much effort to stay on top of all the new developments in the field. That's why professionals with network security certification are in such high demand.

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