Network services: Security issues

In this Course, you are going to look at security issues related to services that use networking.

Here are some of the typical network services that an organisation might use. It includes a range of communications technologies:

• Networks are used to connect to the mobile phone network, or to provide data connections to the Internet. These use a wide range of technologies, including GSM, GPRS, HSDPA, EDGE, 3G, 4G and 5G.

• Public Switched Telephone Network, or PSTN, the fixed telephone network which includes copper, fibre-optic, satellite, and microwave carriers. It’s possible to have leased lines from network providers which, in effect, provide private circuits.

• Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition: SCADA systems are industrial control systems that can monitor and control processes. These can be industrial, infrastructure or facility-based processes and include the Building Management Systems used by many organisations.

• Following that there is CCTV security cameras used to transmit a continuous feed of images to a limited set of monitors. This also extends to Module or module conferencing which includes a range of technologies.

• Voice Over IP – or VoIP – technology is used for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol networks, such as the internet. Instant messaging services, for example Zoom and WhatsApp use VoIP.

Finally, you also need to be aware of the issues regarding users in an organisation accessing external webservers, or customers and partners accessing an organisation’s webservers. These include those using web services – which are application-to-application communications using web technologies, for example HTTP and XML. E-mail is also an external service, exchanging electronic messages from an originator to one or more recipients.

As you can see, it's remarkable how many of these external services we all use daily, even hourly. By now, you will appreciate that with this huge range of connectivity, the possible of data breach is very high indeed. So, it's important you are aware of the risks each of these technologies poses – and equally, the countermeasures you can take to manage them.

Figure 1:Network services

What's next?

So, you have seen a quick overview of external services. Now it's time for you to take a look at these in closer detail. The first one of these external services you're going to look at in depth is mobile, which is one of the most used technologies – and so the one with the greatest potential for risk...