Which of the following is the best method to secure a small network lacking an authentication server?

Australians have already lost $72 million to cybercrime in 2022. No matter what niche your business is in or the scale of your company, network threats can significantly impact your organisation's operations if you are not protected by adequate measures.

Awareness of digital security and the most common security risks can help you, your employees, and data stay safe.

What is network security?

Network security is the deployment and monitoring of cyber security solutions to protect your organisation's IT systems from attacks and breaches. It also covers policies surrounding the handling of sensitive information.

Network security involves the following solutions:

• Network segmentation
• Data loss prevention (DLP)
• Firewalls
• Intrusion  prevention systems (IPS)
• And more

Every year, cybercriminals develop more intuitive programs to exploit businesses. Organisations that regularly invest in their IT system security and educate themselves on the latest security issues stand a better chance of avoiding and surviving cyber-attacks.

7 common network security issues

If your company is aware of the threats listed below, you can create more comprehensive strategies and practices to ensure that your organisation will not fall prey to the cyber world's worst.

1) Internal security threats

Over 90% of cyberattacks are caused by human error. This can take the form of phishing attacks, careless decision-making, weak passwords, and more.

Insider actions that negatively impact your business's network and sensitive data can result in downtime, loss of revenue, and disgruntled customers.

2) Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks

A DDoS attack causes websites to crash, malfunction, or experience slow loading times. In these cases, cybercriminals infect internet-connected devices (mobile phones, computers, etc.) and convert them into bots. Hackers send the bots to a victim's IP address.

This results in a high volume of internet traffic bombarding the website with requests and causing it to go offline. These attacks make it difficult to separate legitimate and compromised traffic.

3) Rogue security software

Rogue security software tricks businesses into believing their IT infrastructure is not operational due to a virus. It usually appears as a warning message sent by a legitimate anti-malware solution.

Once a device is infected with a rogue program, the malware spams the victim with messages, forcing them to pay for a non-existent security solution, which is often malware. Rogue security software can also corrupt your pre-existing cyber security programs to prolong their attack.

4) Malware

Malware are malicious software programs used to gather information about victims through compromised devices. After successful deployments, hackers can mine devices for classified information (email addresses, bank accounts, passwords, etc.) and use them to commit identity theft, blackmail, or other business-damaging actions.

Malware includes:

• Worms – exploits weaknesses in computer systems to spread to other devices.
• Rootkits – grants unauthorised access to systems in the form of fraudulent access privilege without the victim's knowledge.
• Trojan viruses – slips under a network's radar by hitchhiking on other software and provides hackers with unprecedented access to systems.
• Spyware – gathers information on how devices are used by their owners.

5) Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts files within infected systems and holds them for ransom, forcing victims to pay for a decryption key to unlock the data. This can take the form of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS).

RaaS is like software-as-a-service (SaaS), specifically for ransomware. RaaS dealers develop codes that buyers can use to develop their own malware and launch cyberattacks. Some common RaaS examples include BlackMatter, LockBit, DarkSide, and REvil.

6) Phishing attacks

Phishing attacks are scams where hackers disguise themselves as a trusted entity and attempt to gain access to networks and steal personal information, such as credit card details. Phishing scams take the form of emails, text messages, or phone calls.

Similar to rogue security software, phishing attacks are designed to appear legitimate. This encourages victims to click on malicious links or download malware-laden attachments.

7) Viruses

Computer viruses are commonly attached to downloadable files from emails or websites. Once you open the file, the virus exploits vulnerabilities in your software to infect your computer with malicious code to disrupt network traffic, steal data, and more.

Viruses are not to be confused with worms. Though they both are a type of malware, the difference is in how they penetrate networks. Simply put, computer viruses cannot infect systems until their host (the file) is opened. Worms can infect networks as soon as they enter a business's IT infrastructure.

How to protect your organisation's IT infrastructure

There are various ways companies can protect their data and networks from malicious hackers and disasters. While many of these measures can be outsourced to a managed service provider (MSP), they also require you and your staff to remain alert and responsive to potential threats.

You can safeguard your networks by:

• Backing up data and files.
• Investing in comprehensive cyber security awareness training for you and your team.
• Promoting a work environment that values application security and safe practices.
• Installing anti-malware solutions, such as next-generation firewalls.
• Restrict access to your network's security controls for authorised personnel only.
• Upgrade devices and secure your endpoints with multi-factor authentication, strong passwords, etc.

Taking cyber security seriously can help mitigate the chances of your company becoming a victim of data breaches and losing money and time.

Secure your network and data with a team of cyber safety experts

From mobile devices to computers, network security is not a trend that will disappear. It is a way of conducting safe, ethical business and your company's systems need to leverage the latest practices to streamline organisational growth and innovate your processes.

Protecting Wi-Fi from hackers is one of the most important tasks in cybersecurity. Which is why the arrival of next-generation wireless security protocol WPA3 deserves your attention: Not only is it going to keep Wi-Fi connections safer, but also it will help save you from your own security shortcomings.
Here is what it offers:

Password Protection

Start with how WPA3 will protect you at home. Specifically, it’ll mitigate the damage that might stem from your lazy passwords.

A fundamental weakness of WPA2, the current wireless security protocol that dates back to 2004, is that it lets hackers deploy a so-called offline dictionary attack to guess your password. An attacker can take as many shots as they want at guessing your credentials without being on the same network, cycling through the entire dictionary — and beyond — in relatively short order.

WPA3 will protect against dictionary attacks by implementing a new key exchange protocol. WPA2 used an imperfect four-way handshake between clients and access points to enable encrypted connections; it’s what was behind the notorious KRACK vulnerability that impacted basically every connected device. WPA3 will ditch that in favor of the more secure — and widely vetted — Simultaneous Authentication of Equals handshake.

The other benefit comes in the event that your password gets compromised nonetheless. With this new handshake, WPA3 supports forward secrecy, meaning that any traffic that came across your transom before an outsider gained access will remain encrypted. With WPA2, they can decrypt old traffic as well.

Safer Connections

When WPA2 came along in 2004, the Internet of Things had not yet become anything close to the all-consuming security horror that is its present-day hallmark. No wonder, then, that WPA2 offered no streamlined way to safely onboard these devices to an existing Wi-Fi network. And in fact, the predominant method by which that process happens today — Wi-Fi Protected Setup — has had known vulnerabilities since 2011. WPA3 provides a fix.

Wi-Fi Easy Connect, as the Wi-Fi Alliance calls it, makes it easier to get wireless devices that have no (or limited) screen or input mechanism onto your network. When enabled, you’ll simply use your smartphone to scan a QR code on your router, then scan a QR code on your printer or speaker or other IoT device, and you're set — they're securely connected. With the QR code method, you’re using public key-based encryption to onboard devices that currently largely lack a simple, secure method to do so.

That trend plays out also with Wi-Fi Enhanced Open, which the Wi-Fi Alliance detailed a few weeks before. You've probably heard that you should avoid doing any sensitive browsing or data entry on public Wi-Fi networks. That's because with WPA2, anyone on the same public network as you can observe your activity, and target you with intrusions like man-in-the-middle attacks or traffic sniffing. On WPA3? Not so much.

When you log onto a coffee shop’s WPA3 Wi-Fi with a WPA3 device, your connection will automatically be encrypted without the need for additional credentials. It does so using an established standard called Opportunistic Wireless Encryption.

As with the password protections, WPA3's expanded encryption for public networks also keeps Wi-Fi users safe from a vulnerability they may not realize exists in the first place. In fact, if anything it might make Wi-Fi users feel too secure.