NAC Director for Government
What are the risks to your network?
As the Government decrees eGovernment initiatives for both internal and public access to data, new benefits and risks emerge. There have been a number of headline stories reporting some of the risks and exploitations currently identified. However, it is very likely that the current news is only the tip of the iceberg, with identity theft on the increase, one of the bastions of information concerning personal and key security details are Government networks.
Local and Central Government have long locked down desktop or laptop devices, even to the point of encrypting disk drives and portable storage devices. Firewalls are implemented and secured remote access is provided into the network from the Internet.
As Government networks may hold particularly sensitive details on residential, business, social services, transport or civil defence strategies surely a review of the internal network access is long overdue?
Khipu Networks would recommend that you consider the internal network, just as insecure as the internet.
Consider the following basic issues on any network:-
- Unauthorised Network Access from users and devices
- Identifying who and where users / devices are on the network.
- Are users complying with your acceptable use policy.
- Are users accessing more information than they should be?
- Virus or Spyware Infected Devices.
- Network Integrity Ensuring uptime
The ability of the internet to provide freely to anyone quite powerful hacking tools, or information exploitation tools means that any unsecured network is an open repository to an I.T. literate user with malicious or enquiring tendencies.
Common forms of exploitation / attacks come in the form of:-
- Man in the Middle Attacks - Most networks (wired and wireless) are susceptible to this attack, allowing a basic IT user to harvest passwords, user ids, server control etc.
- Data Theft - Network users (staff / contractors / vistors) just download information and copy key records to portable storage devices
- Denial of service attacks - Spyware / Trojans / Viruses seriously affect the network, poor performance, slow response or network downtime is the result.
Possibly 90% of networks are unsecured at the port or wireless level, allowing for a wide range of accidental or malicious exploitation.
If you can not control the above, are you really in control of your network?
Khipu Networks can secure networks at the physical port or wireless access point, track users and devices and integrate with other 3rd party security products to lockdown, secure and audit your network.
For further information on how Khipu Networks solutions secure and control your network, please register your interest for our brochure.
