Implementing NAP and NAC Security Technologies: The Complete Guide to Network Access Control

Misconceptions Abound

Have you ever heard this before:

To implement Cisco NAC, a company needs to have all Cisco networking hardware. Even if they have all Cisco gear, they will likely have to upgrade all of it to use Cisco NAC.

I've heard this statement many times. I've heard engineers say it. I've heard salespeople and marketing people say it. And I've also heard other NAC and NAP vendors say it. The problem is that it's not true. You actually don't have to have all Cisco networking equipment if you want to implement Cisco NAC. In fact, Cisco's Clean Access NAC solution is Cisco's preferred NAC solution, and it simply doesn't have that requirement. You could integrate Clean Access with Cisco networking equipment, but you don't have to.

How about this one:

I will protect my mobile devices with my LAN-based NAC solution.

Here's a question: How on earth is a NAC device sitting behind firewalls on a LAN going to protect a mobile device sitting at a public Wi-Fi hotspot? To provide protection, doesn't the assessment, quarantining, and remediation functionality need to be accessible to provide the protection? If a user is sitting at a Starbucks surfing the Internet, the user simply wouldn't be in communication with a LAN-based NAC device and all that NAC functionality wouldn't even come into play. This book will specifically show how mobile devices are particularly susceptible to exploitation and how an exploited mobile device can cause serious problems on the LAN.

Here's another ...