Assessing Network Security

Chapter 1. Introduction to Performing Security Assessments

We are currently in the Bronze Age of information security. Even though computer network technology has witnessed the construction of the Internet—a massively redundant worldwide network—only primitive tools exist for information security. These tools, such as firewalls, encryption, and access control lists (ACLs), are generally unwieldy and frequently do not work well together. The predators—or attackers in our case—still have a distinct advantage. Simply put, security professionals do not have the evolved set of tools and the depth and breadth of experience that are available to our network administrator colleagues. Consequently, answering the question "How secure is my network?" is ...