Security Confidential S14 E0 Cyber Basics: Network Security

Tyler Smith: Welcome to Security Confidential by Dark Rhino Security, where we get together and talk about all things information security. I’m Tyler Smith, an information security practitioner at Dark Rhino Security.

Nathan: Hi, my name is Nathan. I am a security engineer with Dark Rhino Security.

Tyler Smith: Today we’re going to talk about cybersecurity basics.

So, let’s talk about network security for a minute. Network security is something that I’ve had a lot of experience with just because it is a large part of any enterprise security. I would say it is my swim lane.

Nathan: It’s mine. [Laughter]

Tyler Smith: But yeah, there’s a lot of security work to be done on the infrastructure side, and I think one of the key elements is network security. There are so many different things that bolt on to that: there are security proxies, load balancers, and application firewalls. I mean, it’s just huge. But with network security, again, security needs to enable the business side of things. With any security undertaking—any IT undertaking for that matter—if you don’t start with what the business needs first, you run the risk of moving in the wrong direction entirely.

Nathan: It’s very easy to let an IT crew saturate your budget.

“You need this.” “Why is that?” “Because of all the bad guys.”

Tyler Smith: “Yeah”

Nathan: “Okay. Well, we were going to get accounting software, but I guess that appliance is more important.” “Yes, it is.”

“We need more bandwidth.” “Why?” “Because…” “Okay.”

“All right.”

“If you say so.”

“Okay.”

Tyler Smith: But the network security issue is one that is central to all of IT and security.

Nathan: Well, it’s because it’s central to everything.

Tyler Smith: It’s the roads upon which all your data travel. Network security is something that a lot of companies haven’t looked at in a long time.

Nathan: People set it up, you forget it, and there it sits.

Tyler Smith: And then the guy who set it up leaves the company.

Nathan: Well, unfortunately, it’s true. Some of those old switches were set up 10 or 15 years ago. Some of that equipment will run forever. I know of a 20-some-year-old VPN concentrator. I know of it; I can’t say who owns it, but it’s out there and the only way to repair it is with parts from eBay, but they run forever. That’s where everything needs to go when we jump outside of training and outside of patch management. Your network and your network security are important.

There are lots of tools—tons and tons of resources out there that’ll help you get started on that. Oftentimes now, with the newer next-generation firewalls, those can even pick up the load when it comes to segmenting your network properly. So your infrastructure teams don’t have to worry about that. Hear that, switching guys? You don’t have to worry about it. You can hand it off to your firewall teams, and they can oftentimes do it.

Tyler Smith: And yeah, I mean, it’s legit.

Nathan: So, ideally, your Layer 143 switching guys do what they need to do. Your routing guys have set it up and they’ve gone away. Routers—I wouldn’t touch routers as they are. If they’re working, you really do need to just leave those.

Tyler Smith: Yeah. But even routers—most of the next-gen solutions out there have the capability to run as your router.

Nathan: Yeah. So, I’ve experienced a couple of scenarios where equipment has just been installed and set to pass traffic.

And some of these were medical companies. If HIPAA decided to walk into some of these companies, they wouldn’t have been companies much longer. I’ve seen that a few times where you get there and, literally, all it’s doing is just passing traffic.

Tyler Smith: You could take it out of line and you would notice no appreciable difference.

Nathan: Honestly, find a vendor you can trust and be honest about your expectations and your own personal capabilities. If you tell your vendor that you can go in and make those changes after they leave, that’s going to be the project expectation. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you need help.

Tyler Smith: And again, if you’re working with someone and they don’t ask you about it, make a point to ask them about it and say,

“How can we collect information on the business process that this is supporting? So that when you guys do what you’re coming here to do, every effort you make works towards that, instead of shutting down an entire factory line for a week.”

Sunaina: Well, thank you for coming today.

Tyler Smith: Absolutely.

Sunaina: Yeah. And thank you guys for listening. We will include some resources in the show notes, so check those out. Also, please subscribe to our podcast and we will see you guys next time.

Tyler Smith: Bye, everyone.