Network Access Control For Dummies®

1.1. NAC's Evolving Description

So, what's this network access control thing that you've been hearing and reading about?

First, NAC isn't the cure-all for whatever security or access control issues and challenges confront an organization and their network. But the right NAC solution, deployed appropriately, can deliver significant protection for

• Your network, its applications, and sensitive data

• Your users and their endpoint devices

The right NAC solution for your organization can protect against many (if not most) dangerous malware, nefarious hackers, and any malcontent users that the fast-paced, always connected, always on(line) networked world can throw at you.

So, NAC controls access to a network. Unfortunately, that simple definition and description is only partially right.

Many pundits, experts, and vendors find defining, or (more correctly) describing, NAC very difficult and elusive. You can find almost as many different descriptions of and meanings for NAC as organizations that have or want to deploy NAC, or vendors who produce or produced a NAC solution. But a definition exactly fits your network needs — you just need to figure out which definition works for you.

To really understand how NAC works, consider this common — albeit painful, for some — metaphor to describe network access control: the airport!

The steps involved in operating network access control are, in many ...