Mastering™ Network Security, Second Edition

4.1. Understanding Network Transmissions

It is no accident that the National Security Agency, which is responsible for setting the encryption standards for the U.S. government, is also responsible for monitoring and cracking encrypted transmissions that are of interest to the government. In order to know how to make something more secure, you must understand what vulnerabilities exist and how these can be exploited.

This same idea applies to network communications. In order to be able to design security into your network infrastructure, you must understand how networked systems communicate with one another. Many exploits leverage basic communication properties. If you are aware of these communication properties, you can take steps to ensure ...